Skip to main content

Full text of "Weird Tales v35n04 [1940 07]"

See other formats 


Frank Gruber's up to the minute Miracle 





An adventure of a PROFESSION 
-ivhoee livelihood le 


JULY 



T 



a 19 


FROM MISSOURI- 

and Listerine certainly showed me! " 


When 1 became a nurse I first heard of the pecu- 
liar bottle-shaped bacillus, Piryrosporum Ovale — 
nearly always found in high concentration in infec- 
tious dandruff conditions — and how important it is 
to keep this and other organisms under control. 
Time and again I prescribed Listerine Antiseptic and 
massage . . . time and again I saw dandruff’s scales 
disappear. 

When I got married and 

my baby came, I knew 
how to help keep her scalp 
clean and healthy. I have 
shown my husband how to 
guard against infectious 
dandrud, too. 1 give him a 
vigorous Listerine massage 
regularly. A slight dandruff 
condition he had at one 
time quickly improved. 
He's never without Lister- 
ine Antiseptic now. 


76% of Infectious Dandruff Cases 
Benefited in Clinical Tests 

If you are plagued by dandruff, so often caused 
by germs . . . don’t waste any more time. Start 
today with the famous Listerine Antiseptic 
Treatment. 

Just douse the scalp, morning and night, with 
full' strength Listerine Antiseptic — the same 
Listerine which has been famed for more than 
50 years as an antiseptic mouth wash and gargle. 
Then massage scalp and hair vigorously and 
persistently. 

You’ll be delighted with the cooling, soothing. 


tingling sensation. And, think of it! . . . this 
wonderfully invigorating treatment is precisely 
the same as that which, within 30 days, brought 
about complete disappearance of or marked im- 
provement in the symptoms of dandruff to 76% 
of the men and women who used it twice daily 
in clinical tests! 

So, if you’ve been fighting a losing battle 
against dandruff, don’t neglect what may be a 
real infection. Start right now with Listerine 
Antiseptic and massage. It’s the treatment which 
has proved so useful against infectious dandruff 
in a substantial majority of clinical test cases. 
Lambert Pharmacal Co., St. Louis, Mo. 





. ^ \oTvg^S ^^stances 

,^e teacV , tbe« ^ 


,0V- o£ v-isA°“ 

• Keri^®^®^ v* tli^ 
a®'"" . ^ tbro'iS^ ^ , 

to”' ^!„„««<«"“i, 

-"■nt>'” 

, [hin- “ 


Slatvs o£ tna^® ^ i^eU «P°^; 

.te aetoe-b^ ibox^S^^ ^ j,, 

'”;!;d o£ .eno--ei 

‘“f S r to tf ‘ ‘''' 


.. lov 5» j<.A ^ 

-^tlS CAVIO^^' 
* M. S- 

me ■P“°!L. c^'-'f °!^'v“»' 


JULY 



AN ADVENTURE OF A PROFESSIONAL CORPSE 

(1) The Artificial Honeymoon H. Bedford- Jones 4 

A Certain Young Man Finds Dying a Profitable Business 

THE GOLDEN CHALICE Frank Gruber 15 

Thousands Doubted, But One Thief Knew the Cup's Secret 

THE FIDDLER’S FEE Robert Bloch 23 

He Called the Tune — And Had to Pay the Piper 

THE DREADFUL RABBITS Gans T. Field 36 

Thehr Hunters Became the Hunted — and Died Horribly j 

A RHLLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE (Conclusion) T. P. Kelley 44 

— Planet Ships Are as Common as the Airplanes of This Age 

ON PELL STREET Frank Owen 70 

Manhattan’s Chinatown Shows Its Teeth 

EARS OF THE DEAD James Arthur 75 

Verse 

THE GENTLE WEREWOLF Seabury Quinn 76 

A Lovely Girl . . . In Wolf's Clothing 

THE CRYSTAL HORDE Harry Walton 96 

The Crystal Juggernauts Had an Insatiable and Cannibal Appetite 

INHERITANCE Sudie Stuart Hager 111 

Verse 

BEYOND THE FRAME Maria Moravsky 112 

The Picture . . . Was a Gateway into a Century Time Had Forgotten 

IT HAPPENED TO ME — F. T. Compton, Thomas Ti'afton, Jim Price 120 
THE EYRIE— and Weird Tales Club 123 

Except for personal experiences the contents of this magazine is fiction. Any use 
of the name of any living person or reference to actual events is purely coincidental. 


Published bi-monthly by Weird Tales, 9 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N. Y. Reentered as second-class matter 
Jantiaiy 26, 1940, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Single copies, 15 cents. 
Subscription rates: One year in the United States and possessions, 90c. Foreign and Canadian postage extra. 
English Office: Charles Lavell, Limited, 4 Clements Inn, Strand, London, W.C.2, England. The publishers are not 
responsible for the loss of unsolicited manuscripts although every care will be taken of such material while in their 
possession. Copyright, 1940, by Weird Tales. Copyrighted in Great Britain _ 1^3 

Title registered in U. S. Patent Office. 

PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. Vol. 35. No. 4. 


D. McILWRAITH, Editor. 


H. AVELINE PERKINS, AssocuUs Editor* 


BACKACHE? 


Try Flushing Excess Poisons 
And Acid Thru Kidneys 
And Stop Getting Up Nights 


35 CENTS PROVES IT 


When your kidneys are overtaxed and your 
bladder Is Irritated and passage scanty and often 
smarts and burns, you may need Gold Medal 
Haarlem Oil Capsules, a fine harmless stimulant 
and diuretic that starts to work at once and costa 
but 35, cents at any modern drugstore. 

It’s one good safe way to put more healthy ac- 
tivity into kidneys and bladder — you should 
sleep more soimdly the whole night through. But 
be sure to get GOLD HEDAL — it’s a genuine 
medicine for weak kidneys — right from Haar- 
lem in Holland.' Don’t accept a substitute. 



men line yon now make really bic 
money week after week backed by our Money-Making 
"Store Koute" Plan. Let us explain how your 
earning power should go UP when you take on our 
big-profit Une of 5c — lOe goods including many Na- 
tionally Advertisod products. Show stores how to 
increase sales and profits up to 50^. Bxpcrienco 
unnccossary. Write me TOI>AY. 

H. B. LAYMON, President, Dept. SS-T, Spencer. Indiana 



iWrVi STOP TOBACCO? 


Banlsli tbe craving for tobacco as 
tbousaods bave. Make yourself tree 
and bappy with Tobacco Hcdeemer. 
Not asubirtltute, not babit forming. 
Write for free booklet telling of In- 
lurious effect of tobacco and depend* 
able, easy way to relieve ■ 
tbe craving many men bave. 




NewellPharmacal Co. 

Dept. 600. St. Louis. Mo. 


FREE 

BOOK 


Itl ■ • Relieve Pain 

Rheumatisin?/r^!i 

To relieve the torturing pain of Neuritis, Rheumatism. 
Neuralgia or Lumbago in a few minutes, get NURITO, the 
fine formula, used by thousands. No opiates. Does the work 
quickly — must relieve cruel pain to your satisfaction in a few 
minutes— or your money back. Don’t suffer. Clip this ad now 
as a reminder to ask your druggist for NURITO today. 



If YOU are troubled 
with itching, bleeding 
or protruding Piles, write 
TODAY for a generous 


Sample of Page’s Wonderful 
Combination Pile Treatment 

E.R. PAGE Co., Dept.488-E-S 


FREE 

Marshal^ UIcb. 



New, better bookkeeiwg opportunities opening every 
day. Jobs that pay well — and lead to stiii better jobs. 
We train you to get them — and keep theml Previous 
training not necessary. C.P. A. instructors cover every- 
thing from the ground up. Inespepsive. Write for free 
'book and ^ledal terms. No obligation. Address: 

laSaHaExtea^on Univerdly. Dapt. « 75 -H CUcagii. IIL’ 


GUARANTEED 

TIRES! 

GOODYEAR-GOODRICH 
jPIRESTONE'U.S. and 
Other Standard Makes' 


iwm 

un«s. r........ ■ 

Wortd’s Lowest! 

a «fiu8 B.vciy M 

12 Tires ordered! 



TIRE PRICES 

Tire users by the 
thousands sU over 
tbe U.S.A. voach for 
tbe Long Hard Sow- 
Ice of otir Standard 
Brand tires recondi- 
tion ed with high grad e 
^materials and latest 
fnetbods by oar tire 
experts. Oar 21 
years oxporlonco 
— - •- -8 ft poaeible to 



Comidet« with bat- 
teries and newest 
iTps reSsetor boJb. 
Ready for instant 
HM. stcadr 

lisht. nserol eTery- 
rbare.Ordornow. 


jf offertirea at Ipwoat piieosp with logal 
^Bgrooinent to replace at 14 price any 


BALLOOHTIRESL 

Sin Rim frrts Tol 


tire th^ fails to give 12 Mos. Service. 

EVERY TIRE GUARANTEED! 

REGULAR CORD TIRES 

lire Tire* TubesISize Tires Tubes 
29r’4.45:«S27l»jLd^H«|-|| 

2dx4.50-20 2.3S 1.05 i-ls 3.4S 1.46 

30x4.50-21 2.40 1.16 2x^5 2*11 1*11*0*® 1-*® 

28x4.76-19 2.4S 1.36 2*lt i*?U*3x5 3.7S 1.75 

sStoS:?? i-ig 131 tilUSs lit iItI 

SOxl'^ao 2:83 i:26 HEAVY DUTY TRUCK TIRES 

6.25-17 2.90 1.3^ lITish Preeausef 

Tires TubosiSize Tires 
^.25 
3.9S 


98x5.26-18 2.90 1.35 Size 


i Tubes 


tu 


2.93 1.35 33x5 

81z6.2&-2i 3. 23 1.35 34x5 
6.50-17 3.35 1.40 32x0 
98x550-18 3.35 lAO r “ 

29*5.50-19 3.35 1.46 
6.00.17 3.40 1-40 
80x6.00-18 3.40 1-40 

1^8^^ i*1g Lssa^ *2 . ^ 

1 ^00-30 S.9S 2.9^.00-20 lS.95 & 

nu. other 

6.00-iQ 3.75 1-451 SIZES ' ta^\iaq.:mvfeV8i2a 
SEND ONLY $1.00 DEPOSIT on each tire ordered. 
f^.OO on each Truck Tire.) We ship balance C. O. D. 
Deduct 5 per cent if cash ia sent in fall with order. To 
fill order promptly we may substitute brands if neces- 
sary. ALfaXUBSSBBANp N£W— GUARANTEED*- 
PERRY-FIELD TIRE &JSUBBERCO. 

2 32 8-80 S, Michigan Avi„ OepL 6843, Chicago, HL 


pSx7 10.95 4.65 

i.95 2.9oi***® 11.4S 4-95 

0.95 4.4^x3 13.25 A95 
TRUCK BALLOON TIRES 
~ires Tube^ize Tires Tubes 
9 An i iffvuu^fu 53.7581.6^.60.20 $6.95 83.75 
l*iS 1 « 6.50-20 4.45 1.961^26-20 6.95 ' 

2*55 ^Y^. 00.20 S.95 2.95^.00-20 lO.r" 


SEND NO MONEYI — Save Uooeyl 




TRANSPARENT ✓ PAimAL ■ 

80 Daya*TriaIl ROOFLESS KSSS 

Wemake FALSETEETHforf^ottbyMAIL l^b^l 
from 7/our oum month-impresaioQ. Money- Itasaal 
PpCC Back Guarantee off Satisfaction. Laniu^ 
DwAr-e.B?A««i IW-C Free impression material. directions.catalof?. 

Professional Model y, Oeniol Co., Dept. «.13, Chieigo, m. 


DICE AND CARDS 

IWELYB WATS Professionals win with fair dice. No switching. 
No Practice. ONE HUNDHED and Codes on twenty-four 

different backs. Know these secrets. Protect ywirself. All for 50 
cents, including latest Catalog. OPEN BOOS with 155 pages of 
exj)f>ses, 13.50. 

SPECIALTY EXPOSES, BOX 2482-A, KANSAS CITY, MO. 



Learn at Home— Make Good Money 

Get facts about lob opportunities In Badio and those coming in 
Television. Bead how 1 tra4n yw at bmne for Badin and Television. 
Hundreds I trained bave good Badio jobs or their own Badio busi- 
nesses. Many make $30. $40, $50 a week. Many students make 
$5 to $10 a week extra fixing Radios in spare time while leamin:?. 
Mail .Ooupon. Get 64>page book "Bleb Bewarda In Badio*' FREE. 

B. SMITH, IPresident, Dept. OFM, 

I National Badio Institute. Washington. D. C. | 

• Mail me your 64-pa^e book FBEE. No salesmaa Rill call. " 
I CPIsase wxltd or print plainly.) I 

■ AQB. ■ 

I N AMi ii •««••• t4«#« . I 

I ADDBBSa I 


Please sicntioii News^and Fiction UNn: when answerlnt; advectiacmenti 




Adventure of 
Prof essional 


a 

Corpse 


The Artificial Honeymoon 

By H. BEDFORD- JONES 

The seA'et of one of the strangest professions in the world. 


F or twelve years I’ve earned an hon- 
est living in a strange, perhaps a 
horrible fashion. Nobody in tlie 
world has ever before followed my profes- 
sion. 

James F. Bronson is the name. I’ve 
played a chief part in the most dramatic 
situations, the most pitiful and heart-rend- 
ing situations, which the human brain could 
conceive; and in each case I’ve been quite 
oblivious to all that went on. For, during 
these twelve years. I’ve been a professional 
corpse — a walking dead man. 

You may possibly have noticed the ad- 
vertisement I’ve run in newspapers from 
time to time, all over the country. You 
may have wondered what it meant. It was 
quite disaeetly worded. From the very 
beginning I’ve tried to guard against any 
connection with crooked enterprise. As 
appears in the instance of the Shuteye Me- 
dium. I didn’t always succeed; and else- 
where I may have been imposed upon; but 
to the best of my knowledge I’ve never 
been employed toward the harm of anyone, 
or in contravention of the law. 

Here’s a sample of my advertisement: 

Personal ! — It is possible to simulate death, 
as I can demonstrate to interested par- 
ties. Endorsement of medical profession, 
absolute discretion. All work confiden- 
tial but must be legal and subject to 
closest investigation. News Box BS43. 

3439 


Had I been unscrupulous, I could have 
amassed a fortune through this blind ad. 
Each time it appeared, I’ve received tempt- 
ing offers, some frankly illegal and others 
with some illegal aspect in the background. 
I’ve never accepted one of these offers. 

In relating a few of my most remarkable 
experiences, J must protect my own iden- 
tity and that of my clients; otherwise, no 
details will be changed or hidden. For 
example, in the story of the blind farmer 
and the strip dancer, the lady concerned is 
now an internationally known movie star. 
It would be a dastardly act. even to hint at 
her identity. Nor do I want to do my- 
self out of a job. Despite the thirty-one 
times I have been pronounced dead, and 
the seven times I’ve actually been buried, 
I am still in pursuit of shoes for the 
baby. 

Before taking up my first case, the curi- 
ous account of the artificial honeymoon, let 
me briefly sketch my history and the dis- 
covery of my singular ability. 

I was born on a farm in western Can- 
ada, and had a fair education, with two 
years of college, before my father died 
and the family went broke. After drift- 
ing around and never noticing anything ex- 
traordinary about myself, I came back to 
the farm at the age of twenty- three, to sup- 
port the women folks. I was broke. We 
were all broke. 


/ 


4 



I had an uncle who was also a drifter. 
He had been in South America, and turned 
up one fine day with a trunk full of jmdc, 
a lot of wild stories, and a cough that killed 
him two months later. 

He had brought from Ecuador two tiny, 
shrunken human heads, the size of a bil- 
liard ball. He sent these off to a museum 
and the money helped to bury him. Among 
other things he had a bottle made from a 
gourd and filled with liquid, which he said 
was a sacred drink used by the Indians in 
Ecuador to produce dreams. He expected 
to make money out of it, but died before 
he could get anjrwhere with his schemes. 


After his death I was going through his 
effects, hoping to find sometliing that we 
might sell, for we had bitter need of 
money. 

I came on the gourd bottle and did what 
only a young fool would do: I sampled 
it. Pouring out some of the stuff I tasted 
it. As it seemed harmless and I was curi- 
ous to see what dreams it would produce, 
I swallowed the whole dose. 

It burned like fire. I became rapidly 
drowsy, and frightfully scared. I stumbled 
downstairs, told the folks what I had done, 
yelled that I was poisoned, and then keeled 
over, dead to the "world. 


i 




6 


WEIRD TALES 


It seemed that I really was dead. Natu- 
rally skinny and none too strong, I must 
have looked terrible. They said that my 
lips w'ere really blue. 

The doctor came the six miles from 
town in record time. He took one look at 
me, put his stethoscope to my chest, felt 
for my pulse, and said I was dead. He 
stuck a pin in me, and was sure of it. He 
hauled open my shirt and ran his fingernail 
over my abdomen, and there was no reflex. 
Then he turned up my eyelid, held a mir- 
ror to my nose, and changed his mind at 
once. 

"Hello! Something queer about this; 
he’s breathing. And his pupil’s not di- 
lated,’’ he exclaimed. "Where’s that stuff 
he took? Where did it come from? What 
is it?’’ 

N obody had the answers, of course. 

Neither did he, but he was a shrewd 
man. He gave me a very careful examina- 
tion, and presently slid an injection into 
me. It was, as he told me later, a fortieth 
grain of atropine and caffeine sodium ben- 
zoate. This brought me around. Had it 
not been for the eye-pupil and the mirror 
test, he would have buried me. 

My only sensation was of having been 
asleep, and I had no ill effects. Some days 
later he told me in plain words what a 
damned young fool I was, and what was 
amiss with me. 

"Ever been examined for life insur- 
>» 

ance? 

"Never could afford luxuries, doc,” I 
admitted. 

"Hm! A queer case, Bronson; I’d better 
make it clear to you. First, you have brady- 
cardia and auricular fibrilation; in plain 
English, a slow heart, beating barely forty 
to the minute, but it flutters instead of 
beating. Barrel chestp the heart is back 
from the ribs and the stethoscope doesn’t 
get it. Naturally not,” he added grimly, 
"because your heart is on the right side.” 


This was before it had become fashion- 
able to have the heart thus misplaced. 

As he explained, the slow heart and 
fluttering circulation killed any pulse, 
and accounted for my usual pallor and my 
bluish lips. Also, the liquid I had taken 
was enough to kill anyone; a little more 
might have actually killed me. 

"I took a sample of that stuff and had 
it analyzed. Here’s what is in the infernal 
concoction,” and he handed me the report 
of the analysis. "The protopine, of course, 
killed the sensory nerves; there was no 
abdominal jreflex. You had me fooled for 
a minute. Luckily I gave you the right 
hypodermic to bring you around. Don’t be 
such a fool again. The minute you get home 
throw that cursed liquid of yours away.” 

I did nothing of the sort. Why not? 
Simply because, at the time, I thought I 
might capitalize the local notoriety this ex- 
perience was bringing me. I thought of 
writing a story about it, and I might need 
the liquid as proof. So I kept it. Here is 
the analysis he gave me: 


Anhalonium (Peyotl) 10% 

Protopine 8% 

Bhang 15% 

Alcohol (Tequila) 67% 


Inorganic salts, minute. 

Coloring matter, type undetermined. 

The local newspaper told about the 
young farmer who had been dead and was 
alive, with his heart in the wrong place. 
Other newspapers copied the story. A 
Scotch surgeon came out from Edmonton 
to investigate me. He thumped me, meas- 
ured me, examined me minutely, and after 
grudgingly confirming the opinion of the 
local doctor, went away. (Not long ago 
I met him again in Los Angeles, but he 
failed to recognize me.) Obviously, the 
theory was entirely correct, for since then 
it has served in all my contacts with the 
medical fraternity. 

This misadventure caused me great ter- 


AN ADVENTURE OF A PROFESSIONAL CORPSE 


7 


ror; the discovery of my peculiar physical 
formation preyed upon me and frightened 
me. And yet, as a direct result of my local 
notoriety, I received the first lucrative 
inkling that I need not consider myself 
doomed to an untimely end. Two men in 
a car with a United States license showed 
up at the farm a few days later on, and 
asked for me. 

rpHE driver was a husky, vigorous man 
witli shrewd gimlet eyes. His left hand 
was gloved and dead; it was an artificial 
limb, but he could work its mechanical 
fingers very cleverly. His name was Earl 
Carter, and he was an attorney from the 
States. The man with him was a physician 
whom he had brought out from Edmonton. 

Well aware that the family would not 
approve his errand. Carter got me to go 
out for a ride witli tliem. Once we were 
out of sight from tlie house he drew up 
alongside the road. The two of them 
pumped me, and I was ready enough to 
talk about my experience. Presently Carter 
looked at the doctor, who nodded. 

"I’d chance it, yes.” 

"All right.” Carter handed me a crisp 
hundred-dollar bill. "Bronson, this is 
yours if you’ll get diat gourd bottle, take 
a dose, and show us you can play dead. 
The doctor here will take care of you and 
bring you around. If you can do the trick 
I’ll pay you a thousand more and all ex- 
penses. I want you to go home with me 
and pull off the stunt once again, under 
certain conditions. I’ll need you for per- 
haps a month. It’s good pay.” 

"What?” I exclaimed, in swift alarm. 
"Take a chance on killing myself for a 
hundred dollars?” 

“Are you worth that much alive?” Car- 
ter asked grimly. "Think it over, young 
man.” 

He made no other argument, to his 
credit, and none was needed. 'The thought 
of the money overbalanced my fears; at 


the moment, we actually had no food in 
the house. I made him sign an agreement 
to take care of all funeral expenses if I 
really died, however. 

Then we drove back home. I sneaked 
out the gourd bottle, and we went to town. 
In a hotel room I took a dose of tlie stuff — 
and went to sleep. First, the doctor had 
gone over me very carefully. He was tak- 
ing no chances. 

When I woke up again the hundred was 
mine. Carter admitted, too, that he had 
been frightened stiff by the result of the 
experiment. 'The doctor was more enthu- 
siastic about it. I heard tliem talking. 

"The eyes could be taken care of,” tlie 
medico was saying. "The only thing he 
respdnds to is the mirror test, otherwise. 
That is, if you exclude a very critical ex- 
amination.” 

Carter grunted. "Yeah? What would 
take care of the eyes, then?” 

"Horaatropine would dilate the pupils 
as in death, and a little cocaine with it 
would obviate any corneal reflex. Except 
for the breatliing, he was to all appear- 
ance a dead man. He could stand no 
fluoroscopic examination, naturally; but 
he’d fool many medical practitioners, espe- 
cially if no laboratory facilities were at 
hand. A most remarkable case!” 

Carter knew now that I could do what 
he wanted. I knew that the stunt pro- 
duced no very bad effects on me, so my 
terror was gone. 

In a very general way only, Earl Carter 
told me what he desired. He gave me 
five hundred dollars advance pay, whidi I 
turned over to the family, and we started 
in his car for the States. 

This drive marked the great turning 
point in my life. 

Carter would not detail his plans, but 
whatever they might be, I could guess 
that they held nothing petty or unlawful. 
This man was no piker. He carried a 
spacious air. His vast energy, his driving 


8 


WEIRD TALES 


power, were phenomenal, and extended in 
a dozen different directions. He could 
tarn his hand, even his mechanical hand, 
to anything, and become a master. His 
air of entire assurance was no mere brag- 
gadocio. It held something overwhelming. 
We became real friends on that trip, and 
Carter talked to me like a father. 

“With this damnable gift of yours, 
Bronson, you’ll have to keep a tight check- 
rein on yourself. If you fell into the 
wrong hands, if you became a tool for un- 
scrupulous crooks, you could make a raft 
of money; watch out! God knows I’m no 
angel, and I don’t believe in much of any- 
thing, but this is something that frightens 
me.” 

"You should worry,” I said with youth- 
ful cynicism. 

He gave me a hard look. "You don’t 
get it. Bronson, whatever powers there 
may be in heaven or hell keep an eye on 
such things. Of this I’m convinced. I 
can’t explain it; you’re a farmer, but you 
can’t explain how a blade of corn comes 
up out of a seed kernel. Still, you know 
it does. There’s a strange and terrible cer- 
tainty in the law of compensation, young 
man. If you should turn yourself to illegal 
uses, look put! I don’t know what would 
happen, but I’d hate to be in your shoes. 
You can make money, and make it straight. 
Rerjiember that, always.” 

Over and over the lawyer harped on this 
theme, and drove it heavily into me. He 
was a fine man, the squarest man I had 
ever known, even if he was full of legal 
tricks. Square in a man’s sense of the 
word. Angular, hard, straight as a die — 
foursquare. 

He admitted freely that he did not serve 
the law, but made it serve him, and at 
times ran pretty close to the wind. He 
handed out none of the old blarney about 
legal ethics, which is something designed 
merely to help rook the sucker. On that 
drive he gave me a liberal education in 


the cold, ugly, hard-rock racket of lawyers; 
and more, he showed me how definitely a 
man must live by his own code of ethics 
if he is to^come out on top. 

If Earl Carter is still alive and reads this 
story I want him to realize how deeply 
his words sank into me, and what fruit 
they bore. I owe that man a great deal.' 

Before reaching the city that was our 
destination, we had a week’s drive. In this 
time I came to learn a lot about Carter’s 
business. He was not a mouthpiece for 
crooks, as he had little or no criminal prac- 
tice, and wanted none. He did specialize 
in helping people who were in a jam — 
and who could pay heavily for the help. 

He drilled into me that the prime busi- 
ness of a lawyer is to get his client’s money, 
and that plenty of big-time legal lights 
with wealthy clients simply made use of 
the law to serve the wishes of those clients. 
This was only, a tiny corner of the racket, 
but Earl Carter had turned it into a mighty 
big corner, for himself. No matter how 
respected or innocent a person might be, 
the law could trap him and squeeze him — 
unless he happened to have an attorney 
who could outsmart the law. 

"And I’m the outsmarter, you bet,” 
Carter told me quite frankly. We drew 
pretty close together in those days. "I get 
the sucker off the hook, and he pays 
through the nose for it. Thirty per cent 
of all business in America is run on the 
principle that the fool and his money might 
as well be parted now. We’ve passed the 
age of simple honesty; it went out with 
muttonchop whiskers. Only, I get his 
money by saving him from his folly.” 

"Where do I come in?” was my ques- 
tion. 

He grinned at me. "You just obey or- 
ders. Right now. I’ve got a whopping big 
case on hand that should never come into 
court. 'That’s why I took a long trip by 
myself; I need to cool oS my brain and 
get ideas. When I found you, I got ’em. 


AN ADVENTURE OF A PROFESSIONAL CORPSE 


9 


From the angle of legal ethics and such 
bunk, I ought to be shot for what I’ve got 
in mind. There’s just one thing about it 
to remember. It’s going to get an inno- 
cent person clear of a lousy mess. And 
if you ask me, that’s pretty damned good 
ethics all by itself.” 

Before crossing the border, we stopped 
a couple of days in a small town. How 
Carter managed it, I can only surmise. 
When we left there, however, I had a le- 
galized birth certificate in the name of Ar- 
thxir Sullivan. As such, I came into the 
United States with him, and I continued 
to be Artliur Sullivan for some little time 
thereafter. 

At a submban station a few miles out- 
side his home city. Carter let me out. 

"Ride into town and go to the Grand 
Hotel,” he said. "Get yourself some 
clothes and study the stock market; you’re 
a broker from San Francisco and you never 
heard of me. Let your mustache grow. 
You’ll hear from me in a week.” 

I obeyed orders. 'The Grand Hotel de- 
served its name; I spent money, but did 
not pad my swindle sheet. 'Tlie mustaclie 
made a great change in my appearance, 
and I hung around board rooms and 
learned the jargon of the market, for I was 
anxious to make good at this job. Mean- 
time, I heard a lot about the Petty case. 

It was the biggest, juciest and hottest 
scandal tliat had ever struck town, and 
when it came to trial promised to be still 
hotter. 

Colonel Petty had died three years be- 
fore, leaving a sister, a widow and a daugh- 
ter. He was many times a millionaire, 
owning about a third of everything in the 
city, and his estate all went to his daugh- 
ter, under the guardianship of his widow, 
who had plenty in her own right. And 
now the sister, who was one of these thin- 
lipped women, had chipped in to demand 
the guardianship, the money and the 
daughter, alleging that the widow was an 


improper person to have the child, and so 
forth. And they had die goods on her, 
too. 

Around the hotel I had met a doctor 
named Slausson, who knew everybody in 
town, and I half suspected that Carter had 
steered him on me. We got pretty well 
acquainted. 

"But what’s the scrap about?” I asked 
Slausson, as we talked over the Petty case. 
"I understand tliis daughter is eighteen. 
Whoever wins would only get to handle 
the estate for three years or less. And 
can’t she pick her own guardian?” 

"Not in this state.” Slausson grinned. 
"Minors are protected in this state, you 
bet! But you don’t get the idea. Nobody 
gives a damn about the girl; it’s the shake- 
down. This old maid sister, Tabitha Pett)', 
has the biggest law firm in the West han- 
dling her charges. And those boys are 
slick. Mrs. Petty, the widow, is a frivolous, 
pleasant, harmless woman who likes a good 
time and spends her money. When they 
get her into court, they’ll just tear her 
wide open, see? Misconduct, you bet, real 
or faked. Probably faked, if you ask me. 
It’ll be red hot, too. She faces newspaper 
notoriety of the worst kind. She’s sure 
to lose the girl, who adores her, and she’ll 
be branded for life — unless she digs into 
her wad and settles things. Earl Carter 
won’t let her get into court. He’ll settle.” 

I remembered all Carter had said, and 
from what else I could gather^ realized tliat 
Mrs. Petty was the sucker in the case. The 
trial was set over to September, which was 
three months away. The sucker was sure 
to lose. Tabitha and her law firm were 
utterly respectable, aristocratic, and prac- 
tically saints; so upright they nearly fell 
over backward. Most lawyers, up against 
that firm, just hollered for help and paid 
up rather than risk themselves in court. But 
not Earl Carter. 

"Like to meet Mrs. Petty?” Slausson said 
to me one afternoon. "She’s giving a din* 


10 


WEIRD TALES 


ner dance tonight at the country club. We 
might run out there. I’d be glad to give 
you a guest card, too, for the length of 
your stay.” 

N aturally I assented, perceiving 
the hand of Earl Carter at work. This 
became quite certain with evening. Mrs. 
Petty not only was most gracious, but in- 
vited me to luncheon two days later. Little 
as I knew of society, this intimate invita- 
tion could only be explained in one way 
— Carter. 

Mrs. Petty was pretty and light and use- 
less as a bubble, with not enough brains to 
be anything but the leader of town society; 
just the right target for such a lawsuit. Her 
daughter Patricia — ah, that was different! 
The girl was something wonderful. There 
was a flame in her. She volunteered to 
teach me golf, and in another three days 
we were running around together like old 
friends. 

I did not flatter myself that she had any 
personal interest in Arthur Sullivan. It was 
a hard job not to lose my head, w'hat with 
her companionship and being invited to 
the house all the time by her mother, 
mingling with their friends and so forth. 
I was pretty much of a farm hand, and had 
sense enough to realize it, fortunately. 

All this time, I had received not a word 
from Earl Carter, and had not seen him. 
I sent in my expense account each week 
to his office and received an envelope of 
cash, even to pocket money, by messenger, 
in return. 

Then, one morning, Slausson telephoned 
me to come over to his office. I went. His 
girl attendant sent me into his private 
office, and he gave me a grin. 

"Strip, Sullivan,” he said. "I want to 
give you the once-over.” 

"What for?” L demanded, in surprise. 

He cocked his head on one side and 
eyed me. 

"Yours not to reason why, feller. Yours 


but to do and die. Do you get me? No 
names mentioned, either. I want to check 
up on you, that’s all.” 

I assented with a shrug. When he ap- 
plied his stethoscope to my right side in- 
stead of to my left, I knew instantly that 
he was working for Earl Carter; not an- 
other soul knew my secret. Evidently he 
was checking me over to be sure there 
were no mistakes, and he was thorough 
about it. When he got through, he gave 
me a bottle of liquid and a dropper. 

"Complete directions on the bottle,” he 
said. "Whenever you feel like commit- 
ting suicide, Sullivan, be sure and use this 
hematropine and cocaine first on your eyes. 
Follow the directions carefully; a drop 
every minute for five minutes — ” 

Still no word from Carter, no hint of 
what I was to do. The suspense began to 
get on my nerves. So did Patricia. 

Why? Well, I must be honest about it; 
no one could be so intimately associated 
with that girl, and not react to it. We got 
on pretty well together. She was very 
frank and open, a good sport in all the 
term implies, and pretty as a picture. She 
had hair like red gold, and looked like 
Myrna Loy in the face; when she laughed, 
you could hear little silver bells tinkling in 
the air. 

She was not in love with anyone, as I 
had discovered. We had not mentioned 
Carter, nor anything out of the way in our 
friendship. 

I knew that she was devoted to her 
mother and hated her Aunt Tabitha like 
poison, as well she might, but we had 
never discussed the lawsuit, of course. 

Then, without warning, everything 
broke at once. And what a break! 

It was the middle of July, and hot 
weather. I did a round of golf w'ith Pa- 
tricia in the morning, and came back home 
for lunch with her and Mrs. Petty. There 
was one other guest; it was Earl Carter. I 
was introduced to him, quite formally, and 


AN ADVENTURE OF A PROFESSIONAL CORPSE 


then we had lunch served out in the sunken 
garden behind the huge house. It was 
cool there, beneath a big striped awning. 
Also, no one could overhear what was said. 

When the things were cleared away and 
the serv'ants dismissed, Pat and her mother 
went to look at the flowers, leaving me 
alone witli Carter. He gave me a hard, 
straight look. 

"Sullivan, this is Tuesday. On Friday 
afternoon, you ask Pat to marry you.” 

It hit me like a bombshell. I stared at 
him for a moment, then got angry. 

"Are you joking? No, you’re not. Well, 
I’ll do no such thing — ” 

"Part of the job,” he cut in, chewing 
on a cigar. “Come on, now; straight talk. 
You and I and Slausson know you’re going 
to die. These women don’t. They think 
you’re going to marry Pat, then the mar- 
riage will be annulled. You know all about 
the legal mess, and you’ve got to do the 
one thing tliat can save Mrs. Petty from 
the whole dirty net these swine have caught 
’em in. The marriage, of course, is to be 
in name only.” 

"Why not hire somebody else for that?” 
I said hotly. "And then have the marriage 
annulled?” 

"Nope. Under the state law, the one 
thing that can clinch our business is for 
Pat to become a widow — quick. Otherwise, 
there’d be fraud charges and hell to pay. 
Pat comes into her money, is free of guar- 
dianship, this damned cat of a Tabitha is 
helpless and so arc her lawyers. And 
there’s no shakedown. Get it?” 

I grunted in dismay. “But I’ll be mar- 
ried, tied up all my life!” 

Carter chuckled. "Sure, Arthur Sulli- 
van will. He’ll be dead and buried, with 
a fine monument in the cemetery. You 
won’t. You’ll be James Bronson, another 
man.” 

“Damn it, I don’t like it, ”I said bluntly. 
“What about Pat? Woiildn’t she actually 
be tied up to me for life, if the truth of it 


11 

ever leaked out? Isn’t a marriage und(;r a 
pseudonym still a marriage?” ' 1 

“How can it be if the husband’s dead?” 
Carter snapped. He reddened a bit; my 
question had hit him in a tender place. 
"Never mind all that; I’m running this 
business, not you. Here they come. Re- 
member, now — it’s to be annulled! That’s 
all they know.” 

We rose, as the ladies returned. Carter 
explained that he had put the whole thing 
before me and I had agreed. It would 
all be very simple. Mrs. Petty would be 
able to have the marriage annulled and 
there would be no trouble. ' 

"Oh, it all seems so terrible!” Mrs. 
Petty’s nerves were shaky. "What if any- 
thing went wrong?” 

Carter gave me a grim look. "Nothing 
will go wrong. There’s not a loophole.” 

"But there is.” Patricia flashed me a 
quick smile. "If Arthur were crooked, 
things might go frightfully wrong; but he’s 
not. Your opinion of him, Mr. Carter, is 
correct, and I know him pretty well. You 
will help us, Arthur?” 

“I suppose so, yes,” I said, hesitant. 
"Only—” 

“Only, it’s a business proposition,” said 
Pat, with a nod. “Right.” 

"Well, I suppose I’ll have to go through 
with it,” her mother declared resignedly. 

“You will,” Carter assured her. "And 
when you’re tempted to back out, just think 
how Aunt Tabitha is going to foam at the 
mouth! Now, you young folks, get things 
straight. You propose on Friday after- 
noon, Sullivan. Pat says yes. The two 
of you leave for a drive in Pat’s car on 
Saturday morning. Drive on across the 
state line to Cedarville; you can get a li- 
cense and be married tliere on Saturday 
afternoon, which you can’t do in this state. 
Thus there can be no court interference 
until Monday, when it’s too late. Cedar- 
ville is a big place. Take a suite at the 
Hotel Cedar and stay until Monday. Then 


12 


WEIRD TALES 


drive on clear to St. Louis, and come back 
here the end of the week. All set?” 

It was all set. Before leaving, however, 
Carter had a last word with me alone. 

"Sullivan, you’ll pull the death act on 
the following Monday, at a luncheon here. 
I’ll have just the people I want, for guests, 
and I’ll be here as well. Tliat evening, I’ll 
get you out of town. Go far and stay. 
Shave off your mustache or grow a beard, 
either one. I’ll give you a ring here — you 
and Pat will come back to this house — on 
Sunday evening and make sure everything’s 
jake.” 

So everything was shaped up, and once 
I was in for the business, I could admire 
the ingenuity of Carter’s plan. 

Just the same, I was frightfully awkward 
when with Patricia, during the next two 
days. A thousand problems bothered me. 
I did hot know what to say or do. At 
length she got riglit down to cases with 
me, while we were dancing at the country 
club Thursday evening. 

"Arthur, for heavens’ sake come back to 
earth and be sensible! Stop flushing every 
time you look at me. I’m the one who 
ought to be embarrassed and all in a stew.” 

"’That’s the trouble,” I said. "You’re not. 
And — and I think a lot of you.” 

Her face got cold. "You’re not jump- 
ing the gun, are you?” 

"No, confound it,” I said. Just then 
someone cut in, and we did not refer to 
it again. 

Friday afternoon, at the country club, 
we played around five holes and I could 
not get up to the point of proposing. 
Business or not, I evaded it. At the sixth 
hole, Pat told me to get a move on. I 
had gone into a bunker, and the caddies 
were watching. 

"Just what we want. Art,” she said 
briskly. "When they see us kiss, those boys 
will spread the news, and — ” 

“All right, damn it, will you marry 
me?” I blurted out desperately. 


She laughed., "Yes! In spite of all the 
world, my hero!” 

So I kissed her, and she kissed me; then 
she drew back, a little red. 

"You don’t need to show too much en- 
thusiasm,” she snapped. "Remember, this 
is business only. Come on, finish the 
match and pretend you don’t see those 
caddies snickering.” 

So I did. 

Next morning I met Pat downtown, 
climbed into her car, and we were off. She 
said her mother was pretty near hysterical 
over the affair, but would come out of it 
all right. Pat was nervous herself, and so 
was I. Even in a business proposition, 
people have feelings. 

We got to Cedarville, crossed the state 
line, and at the courthouse got our mar- 
riage license. This part of it was all right. 
We hunted up a justice of the peace and 
that was all right, too, until he went to 
work on us. Then I began to feel uneasy. 
When he slammed his book and pro- 
nounced us man and wife, Pat was white 
and shaky and I was red as a beet. 

"Well, get busy and kiss the bride!” 
cackled the justice. 

I did it, and Pat clung to me for a mo- 
ment. Her kiss was sweet, and it was like 
fire; it went through every vein of me. 

"Two dollars,” said the justice. "Busi- 
ness is business, folks.” 

"A good motto to remember,” Pat said 
to me, and I nodded dumbly. 

We went to the hotel and got a suite. 
Pat went up with the bags, to freshen 
up a bit, and I got rid of the car. She met 
me in the lobby, and we went out to a pic- 
ture show, which is the best sedative for 
disordered nerves. It was going to be an 
awkward moment when we got back to 
the hotel for the night, and I think we 
both wanted to put it off as long as pos- 
sible. 

However, the movie put us into humor 
for joking over the marriage state, and we 


\N ADVENTURE OF A PROFESSIONAL CORPSE 


13 


hunted up a good place where we could 
dine and dance. 

"What about wine?” said Pat, after we 
had ordered. She gave me her bright and 
flashing smile; there was a sparkle in her 
eyes. "Don’t you ever celebrate your wed- 
dings with cliampagne. Art?” 

I thought of her kiss, that afternoon, 
and knew perfectly well that we were on 
dangerous ground; I certainly was, and I 
more than suspected she was. All right, be 
damned to caution, I thought with a burst 
of feeling. After all, this is my wife. We 
are legally married. Champagne, and a big 
one! 

So we dined and danced. Pat loved to 
dance, and with her flushed cheeks and 
sparkling eyes, she looked divine. When 
I held her close to me and brushed my lips 
against her face, she looked up at me and 
laughed. 

"There’s something bewitching about it 
all, isn’t there?” she breathed. "About be- 
ing alone, in a perfectly strange city, and 
— and — ” 

"And being old married folks,” I said. 
"Yes, there is. Did you write your 
mother?” 

She nodded. "This afternoon, And I 
lied beautifully so she could show the let- 
ter. I said we were married, and how 
happy we were, and how fine you 
are — ” 

"Was it all a lie, Pat?” 

Her eyes met mine, and her arm tight- 
ened about my shoulders. 

"Maybe not all. Art,” she murmured, 
just as the dance ended and the crowd 
streamed back to the tables. 

I T WAS late, when our taxi dropped us 
at the hotel. I got the room key and 
we went up; and to be quite honest about 
it, I had quite forgotten that motto the jus- 
tice of the peace had quoted to us. Pat 
was a glorious creature, and I knew that 
she did like me, and she was my wife. 


That was enough to make anyone forget 
anything else. 

We had a suite of two rooms with bath 
between. I imlocked one door and we 
went in, and switched on the lights. The 
room was empty. 

"I had all the bags put in my room,” 
said Pat, leading the way. "Come along 
and pick yours out. It’s been a perfectly 
scrumptious time. Art; I’ve never enjoyed 
champagne so much in my life!” 

And now it was ended. She did not say 
the words, but I could sense them — and 
I could sense the regret in them. 

We went on through to her room. I 
picked up my bags, and then set them 
down again. A lump came into my throat 
when I looked at her, when I met her eyes. 

"Pat!” I stammered. "Pat, dear — ” 

She dropped her cloak on the bed, rum- 
pled up her short hair, and turned to me 
with a half smile. 

"Yes? Not a compliment, surely?” 

"You’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever 
seen,” I said awkwardly, and reached out 
and touched her. Her eyes were radiant, 
as she came to me. 

"Just for that, my dear, you might kiss 
me good-night,” she said. 

I held her for a moment, xmtil she 
pushed me away, but not completely. 

"The proper thing. Art, for an old mar- 
ried couple to do, would be to smoke a 
good-night cigarette together,” she said 
gaily. "Take your bags over, then — ” 

What I read in her eyes made my heart 
pound. I kissed her once more, quickly. 

"Right,” I said. 

Picking up my bags, I carried them over 
into my own room. And when I got there, 
I stopped dead. Sitting in a chair, calmly 
regarding me, was a perfectly strange man 
in a chauffeur’s whipcord uniform. 

"Who are you?” I snapped. "What the 
devil are you doing in my room?” 

“Jim Brady, of the Gallup Detective 
Agency, Mr. Sullivan. My job Is to driv’e 


14 


WEIRD TALES 


your car from here on, and to spend every 
night sleeping right with you.” 

For an instant I was speechless. Then 
I burst out hotly. He cut me short. 

"Listen, Mister, it’s no use talking. I’m 
here, and my partner’s got the room across 
the hall with the transom open. We stick 
closer’n burrs until you folks get back 
home. And if you kick up any fuss, you 
get slugged and thrown into jail.” 

Pat, who had heard the voices, came 
in and stood staring. I was in a blether 
of rage. I thought Carter must have done 
this, but I was wrong. Brady was frank. 

"Nope. I’m hired by Mrs. Petty, see? 
Now, folks, I’m mighty sorry to stop the 
fun, but that’s my orders, You got to de- 
cide whether you want to raise hell or take 
it easy. I’ll accommodate you either way.” 

I looked at Pat, and she had gone dead 
cold. 

"Nothing to be said about it, I suppose,” 
she observed. "It would knock everything 
in the head. Art, if we tried to fight — ” 

That was true, and I settled into a mis- 
erable resignation, and cursed Mrs. Petty 
with all my heart. We were married, yes, 
but we were up against two thugs — and 
publicity would upset the applecart. 

And, believe it or not, that man Brady 
was with me closer than a burr, as he had 
put it, until we got back home the end of 
the week. 

By that time, the budding dream was 
gone. My relations with Pat had settled 
down to a cool business basis. When we 
were esconced in her own gorgeous home, 
I put in a devilish two days — congratula- 
tions on all sides, happiness to the newlyt 
weds, gifts and so forth. And it was all 
a lie, had people but known it. 

I gathered that Aunt Tabitha was grit- 
ting her teeth and preparing for action. 

On Sunday night Carter telephoned me 
on the last details. Monday noon came, 


and with it a formal luncheon. The old 
family doctor was there, among others. I 
complained of feeling ill, left the party 
long enough to put the hematropine in 
my eyes and take a dose of the liquid from 
the gourd bottle, and rejoined the com- 
pany. I did not care particularly whether 
I stayed dead or not. The whole business 
had rather sickened me; I had not yet be- 
come used to such things. 

At the luncheon table, I went to sleep. 
The old family doctor took one look at my 
eye, felt my pulse, tried for my heart — 
and the fat was in the fire. Doctor Slaus- 
son was hurriedly suinmoned, but no use. 
I was dead and no mistake. 

Nor did I make a pretty corpse, with 
my pallor, bluish lips and so forth. Carter 
told me as much that night, after he had 
revived me and taken me out of town in 
his car. 

"You looked like the devil,” he said. 
"Good thing I was warned about the mir- 
ror test! Watch out for it in future, if you 
spring this stunt again. Luckily, Slaus^n 
took care of it; held a mirror to your lips 
and pronounced it blank.” 

He handed me my money and turned me 
loose with his blessing. 

"Feel all right? Good. Clear out, and 
don’t you ever came back to this town! 

"But how’ll you manage the funeral?” 
I demanded airiously. 

"Never mind. That’s all fixed, and no 
last views of the corpse either.” He grinned 
at me and started up his engine. ' Arthur 
Sullivan is dead, understand?” 

It really is a beautiful tomb. I went 
through the city last year and stopped over 
just to see it. A lovely shaft of granite 
raised to the memory of Arthur Sullivan. 
And I found it had been erected by Pat’s 
"second husband.” 

I’ve often wondered what sort of a yarn 
she told him about her first honeymoon! 



Thieves came in the night, and stole the Golden Chalice. 





olden Chalice 


By FRANK GRUBER 

Two thieves had stolen the Golden Cup. And it was old- 
very old. And some said . . . 


T he cup was made of gold, no 
question about that. It was about 
four inches tall and weighed 
pretty close to a pound. I didn’t know of 
any other metal that would laave made the 
cup weigh as much, even though the thing 


didn’t look like gold. But I guess that was 
because it was so old. 

It looked like it had been buried in the 
ground for a long time and was pretty bat- 
tered and dented. It wasn’t a big haul. 
’We’d be lucky to get three hundred for it 

15 


16 


WEIRD TALES 


from Opdyke. He’d make maybe two hun- 
dred profit on it, by melting it down and 
selling it to the government as old gold, 
at thirty-five dollars an ounce. 

We’d tixrned in pretty late the night be- 
fore and it was almost noon before we got 
up. I dug the cup out from under the bed 
and was looking it over and thinking that 
I was a damn fool for taking such chances 
for a lousy hundred and fifty — my share of 
the split, 

Benny, on the other hand, was pretty 
chipper. He wasn’t used to big money and 
all he’d done to earn his share was keep a 
lookout outside the place, while I went in 
and did the dirty work. 

"Not bad, Jim,” he cackled, "It couldda 
been more, but this ain’t bad at all.” 

I looked around the room I was sharing 
with Benny. It was about eight feet by 
ten and contained a bed with springs that 
sagged almost to the floor, two chairs, a 
cheap dresser and a row of nails, in the 
wall that served as a clothes closet. Benny 
paid four dollars a week for the room. The 
one I’d had up the river — with bars on 
the door and window — had been just as 
cheerful. 

I said to Benny: "We’ll get some clothes 
and some good food and have a couple of 
parties. We’ll be broke in a week. Then 
what?” 

“Then we’ll crack another safe,” he re- 
plied promptly. "There’re some swell 
joints on Long Island and . . .” 

T hat was when the knock came on the 
door, I never saw a man change his 
color as quickly as Benny did. One minute 
he’d been cocl^ as a Jungle Shawl fighting 
rooster, the next his face looked like sour 
dough and he was shivering like a man 
who’s just been pulled out of the river. 

I took a couple of quick steps toward 
Benny. "Thought you said no one knew 
where you lived?” I hissed at him. 
Benny’s teeth chattered as he shook his 


head. "They — they don’t! That’s why . . « 
you s’pose it’s — the cops?” 

Well, it could be. But I didn’t think so. 
We’d made a clean getaway the night be- 
fore. I said to Benny: "Maybe it’s your 
landlady?” 

The knock on the door was repeated, 
two quick knocks, then three spaced fur- 
ther apart. I jerked my head at the door 
and moved toward it. 

Benny called out: "Who is it?” 

A quiet sort of voice answered. A man’s 
voice. "Open up, I want to talk to you.” 

Benny wasn’t shivering, now; he was 
shaking like a young sapling in a Kansas 
twister. For my own part I took a quick 
look out of the window. I saw that it 
opened on a dead air shaft. 'Tliere was no 
retreat that way, and I cursed Benny for 
being such a fool as to rent a room without 
a hole by which he could escape. 

Well, there was nothing to do but open 
the door. I slipped back the bolt and 
jerked open the door. I expected a cop. 
Maybe he was a cop. But he didn’t look 
like one. 

He was tall, about six feet, well built, 
but still looked kind of lean. He was in 
his early thirties and rather dark complex- 
ioned. 

I hardly took in his features though, 
because of his eyes. They were large and 
dark and there was an expression in them 
that I can’t describe — except that when I 
looked into them I was . . . scared! I ad- 
mit it and I don’t scare easy. 

He was smiling. 

"May I come in?” It wasn’t the tone a 
cop usually uses. 

I moved back into the room and shot a 
quick look toward the bed. Benny had 
had sense enough to throw a blanket over 
the gold cup. But when I looked back at 
the stranger his eyes were on the bed. He’d 
closed the door behind him. 

He said: "You’ll have to take it back.” 

He couldn’t see the gold cup; for that 


THE GOLDEN CHALICE 


17 


matter he couldn’t have known that Benny 
and me were the ones who stole it. 

I began edging around him, so that he 
was partly between Benny and myself. I 
said: "What’re you talking about? Take 
what back?” 

He shook his head and smiled. "The 
golden chalice — I guess you’d call it a cup. 
You’ll have to take it back to Alfred Hal- 
leck.” 

Benny chirped up, then. He said: 
"Sure,” and went to the bed. He stooped 
over, put his hand under a pillow and came 
up with a .32 caliber automatic. I blinked. 
I hadn’t known that Benny had a rod. 

He pointed it at the stranger and 
snapped: "Up with ’em. Copper! You’re 
not pinching us — not today!” 

I was looking at the stranger. He didn’t 
seem worried. He was still smiling, only 
. . . the smile was a kind of sad one. I had 
a funny feeling down around where my 
stomach’s supposed to be. 

"I’m sorry,” the stranger said, "you’ll 
have to take it back.” 

Benny sneered. "There’s some rope in 
the top drawer, Jim. Tie his hands. My 
room rent’s up today, anyway. We’ll just 
leave him here.” 

I got the rope, but I wasn’t feeling so 
good. The gun in Benny’s hand — I’ve done 
a lot of things in my time; I’ve been up 
the river, but I never carried a gun. I 
didn’t believe in guns. Sure, I’m a safe- 
cracker — a burglar. But I take my chances. 
I try not to get caught, but if I am — that’s 
my hard luck. I take the rap. But I don’t 
ever want any murder rap. All the fel- 
lows I ever knew who carried guns wound 
up with murder raps. 

The stranger put his hands behind his 
back. I wound the rope around his wrists, 
then he stretched out on the bed and I fin- 
ished up by tying his feet. I did a good 
job of it. I wanted enough time to take 
the cup to Opdyke, get my split and leave. 
I wanted no more of Benny. 


Benny got the cup from under the blan- 
ket, wrapped it in a towel, then rolled the 
whole thing inside an old newspaper and 
tied a piece of string around it. 

We were ready to leave the room when 
the stranger spoke again. He said: "Take 
it back. Take it back, Benny Potter and 
Jim Vedder.” 

T DIDN’T tliink about that until we 
were outside of Benny’s rooming house. 
Then it struck me. No one, aside from 
Benny, knew my name. I’d only got out 
two days ago. I’d come straight to Benny’s 
room and had been out of it only once, the 
night before when we took the trip up to 
Fox Meadow in Scarsdale and cracked the 
safe. . 

Benny lived on Christopher Street. We 
walked east to Sixth Avenue, then turned 
north. After a block or two, Benny said, 
"Let’s stop in here and get a glass of beer.” 

I was willing. My throat was kind of 
dry. The saloon didn’t look like much, 
but beer’s beer no matter where you get 
it. We went in. It was the middle of 
the morning and the place was deserted ex- 
cept for the bartender and one customer 
who stood in front of the bar, with his 
back toward us. 

"Two beers,” Benny said, before we 
even got to the bar. 

Then the man at the bar turned around. 
It was The Stranger. 'The man we’d left 
in Benny’s room, tied hand and foot. 

He looked right at me and this time he 
wasn’t smiling. The temperature of the 
cafe seemed suddenly to get ten degrees 
colder and I know that the short hairs stood 
straight up on the back of my neck. 

He said: "You’ll have to take it back.” 

I was pretty shocked by the sight of him, 
but Benny looked like he was going to 
faint. His mouth was opening and closing 
like that of a fish taken out of the water. 

I backed to the door and that broke the 
spell on Benny, He gave a hoarse yell. 


18 


WEIRD TALES 


wlupped out the .32 automatic and rushed 
backwards, like a prize-fighter backing 
away. He was in such a hurry he missed 
the door and banged against the wall. 

He made it the second time and I was 
only one jump behind him. Out on Sixth 
Avenue we rushed to the next corner, 
which was 11th Street, turned right and 
didn’t stop until we were almost up to 
Fifth. We stopped then just because we 
were out of breath. We both looked back, 
but The Stranger wasn’t in sight. 

"Gawd!” panted Benny Potter. "How 
did he get loose from those ropes and beat 
us to that saloon?” 

"He couldn’t have done it,” I told 
Benny. "We went there straight from your 
room, by the shortest way. And, anyway 
. . . how did he know we were going to 
turn into that very saloon? We didn’t 
know it ourselves until we saw the sign.” 

Benny’s eyes almost popped out of his 
head. "That’s right!” he gasped. "He 
couldn’t have known we’d go in there — 
unless he guessed!” 

I didn’t say a word. I was still feeling 
cold, despite the long run I’d just had and 
I don’t think the short hairs on my hackle 
had gone down. Up the street a little ways 
was a delicatessen shop, with a newspaper 
stand in front of it. I plunked down two 
cents and picked up a morning newspaper. 

It was on the front page, a picture with 
the caption; "Holy Grail Stolen.” Below 
the head were three lines, reading: “Bur- 
glars last night blew the safe in the home 
of Alfred D. Halleck, noted archaeologist 
and took the famous golden chalice which 
has been the subject of much controversy 
since Halleck brought it to America three 
years ago. Page 3, for further details.” 

I turned to Page 3. The story went on: 

"Burglars last night dynamited the 
safe of Alfred D. Halleck’s Fox Mea- 
dow estate and stole the golden chalice 
that was the sensation of the New York 


World’s Fair. Professor Halleck re- 
turned from Asia Minor three years ago 
with the golden cup that has since been 
called the Holy Grail. Professor Hal- 
leck claimed to have found the cup 
while excavating near Antioch. Scien- 
tists, religious leaders and archaeolo- 
gists have become divided in two camps 
as to the authenticity of the cup. Profes- 
sor Halleck’s group claim the cup is un- 
doubtedly of first century manufacture 
and from its description and the location 
where it was found believe it is the 
original chalice used by Christ and his 
disciples during the Last Supper. ...” 

There was more, but that was as far as 
I read. I couldn’t see more of the print. 
All I could see was the face of The 
Stranger. Swarthy, tall, in his early thir- 
ties. . . . Once, when I was broke and it 
was snowing outside I spent an entire after- 
noon in the Public Library. I was looking 
through an encyclopedia and came across a 
number of pictures supposed to be of old 
religious paintings found in the Catacombs 
near Rome. One of the pictures was sup- 
posed to go back to the first century. It 
showed a tall, well-built man in his early 
thirties, a swarthy man, with a prominent 
nose and a beard. 

HE STRANGER didn’t have a beard 
. . . but I knew now why he looked 
familiar. 

I gave the paper to Benny and let him 
read it. He snorted; "Imagine those suck- 
ers paying money to see this thing at the 
World’s Fair. Well, Grover Whalen’s go- 
ing to be disappointed this season, because 
this cup won’t be there. It’ll be melted 
down and . . 

“No,” I said, "it won’t be melted down. 
We’re taking it back.” 

Benny stared at me. “Are you crazy? 
After the trouble we went to get it? Hey 
— snap out of it. Opdyke lives over here 



THE GOLDEN CHALICE 


19 


on Fourth Avenue. He’ll haggle around 
a little, but he’ll come across with three 
hundred. Two-fifty at the least.” 

"The cup goes back to Fox Meadow,” I 
told Benny. "It’s — an antique. It’s worth 
a lot more than three hundred.” 

"All the more reason then!” Benny 
cried. "We’ll show this to Opdyke — kick 
the price up on him.” 

All of a sudden I got mad. I grabbed 
Benny’s arm and twisted him around. "You 
fool, don’t you see? Halleck values this 
cup. It’s worth a lot to him — a lot more 
than three hundred. All right, we’ll sell it 
back to him.” 

Benny’s eyes lit up. "Say, that’s an idea. 
Maybe he’ll go a grand for it. It says here 
he thinks it’s a religious piece. Well, if 
he thinks so much of it he ought to go a 
grand. He’s got the dough. That place of 
his cost a lot. We’ll hold him up for a grand. 
Come on — ^we’ll grab a train out to Scars- 
dale and get it over with. We’ll break in 
on him and make him come across with the 
dough, before we turn over the cup. Other- 
wise he might call the cops. . . .” 

We took a bus on Fifth Avenue and 
rode up to Forty-second, then walked 
across to the Grand Central. Inside we 
bought two one-way tickets to Scarsdale 
and looked up the train schedule. One 
was listed to leave in twelve minutes. I 
didn’t like the idea of waiting around the 
waiting room, so gave Benny the high-sign 
and headed for the washroom, on the lower 
level. 

To kill time we got up on a couple of 
high seats to get our shoes shined. Benny 
got his shined first, then the bootblack got 
on mine. It was timing things pretty close. 
When he finished with me, it was two min- 
utes to train time. I paid for the shines 
and headed for the door. It opened be- 
fore I got to it and — The Stranger came 
in! 

Benny let go altogether this time. He 
yelled to high heaven and he got so scared 


he dropped the cup that was wrapped in 
the towel and newspaper. 

Me, I just stood and stared at The Stran- 
ger. I guess I’d still be standing there 
looking at him, if he hadn’t stooped and 
picked up the package. Fie held it out 
to me, smiled and said: 

"Take it back, Jim Vedder.” 

He left me holding it, turned and then 
walked out. Benny recovered then. "Y7hat 
— ^what do you make of that, Jim?” he 
cried. 

I said: "We’re takjng it back, Benny. 
Come on!” 

The gateman was just about to close the 
gate when we got to it. I grabbed a news- 
paper from a stand next to the door, threw 
down a nickel and scooted inside. We ran 
to catch the last car of the train, just as it 
was starting. 

We got seats in the rear and I spread out 
the newspaper. It was the noon edition of 
an evening paper. The story was still on 
the front page. But there were some new 
angles to it. First of all, Alfred D. Hal- 
leck was offering a reward of $1,500 for 
the safe return of the Golden Chalice, as 
he called it. And No Questions Asked. 

In an adjoining column was an interview 
of Halleck, made by one of the paper’s 
reporters. Halleck was pretty worked up 
by the thing. He was offering a reward, 
he said, but he didn’t really expect to get 
the Golden Chalice back. That was because 
he didn’t think that ordinary burglars had 
blown his safe. He suspected the job had 
been done, or hired done, by a certain 
wealthy collector of objets d’art, who’d 
been bothering him for the last three years, 
trying to make Halleck sell the Golden 
Chalice. The collector, Halleck said, had 
offered him $50,000 for the cup and when 
he’d still refused to sell it, had threatened 
to steal it from him. 

Halleck wouldn’t tell the reporter the 
collector’s name, but the reporter was a 
smart lad. He’d checked up back in the 


20 


WEIRD TALES 


office and had gone to ask a Mr. August 
Messerschmidt, who lived on Park Avenue 
in New York, if he had any comment to 
make. Mr. Messerschmidt was a well- 
known collector of objets d’art. The re- 
porter didn’t come right out and say that 
Messerschmidt was the man who’d made 
the offer and threat to Halleck, but any 
kid could figure out the answer. Anyway, 
Messerschmidt had thrown the reporter out 
on his ear. 

Benny was reading over my shoulder. 
When I put down the paper he took it 
from me and ripped out the page. He be- 
gan folding it up. 

I said: "What’ re you going to do with 
that?” 

He didn’t answer right away. The con- 
ductor had come along, collected our tickets 
and put a couple of slips in the slot on the 
back of the seat ahead of us. When he 
had gone away, Benny said: 

"This Messerschmidt’s a crook. He wants 
that cup any way he can get it. I’ve heard 
of guys like him. There’s a fella in Phila- 
delphia, collects pictures. He’s got a mil- 
lion dollars worth of them and no one ever 
sees them but himself, becai^e half of them 
have been swiped. This Messerschmidt’ll 
go twenty-five g’s. We’ll get off at the 
125th Street Station.” 

I WONDERED why I’d ever tied up 
with Benny Potter. With what had 
happened to us in the last hour. ... I said 
to him; "No, we’re going to Scarsdale. The 
cup goes back to Halleck. We take what- 
ever reward he gives us and we let it go at 
that.” 

"Are you crazy?” Benny yelped. "The 
most he’d give is fifteen hundred and the 
chances are four in five he won’t give us 
anything but a houseful of cops. We’re 
not going anywhere near Fox Meadow. 
We’re getting off at the first stop and tak- 
ing this to Park Avenue. 'That guy Mes- 
serschmidt’s a bigger crook than we are. 


That’s why he’ll come across. . . . Gimme 
the cup!” 

He reached for it and I shifted it to my 
left arm, against the window. With my 
right hand I slapped down his reaching 
paw. 

He gave me a dirty look, then slumped 
down in his seat. He didn’t say a word 
'until the train pulled into the 125th Street 
Station. Then he suddenly got up. “All 
right, Jim, if that’s the way you want it — ” 

His hand went to his hip and came back 
with the .32 automatic. I’d forgot all about 
him having it. There’d been too much on 
my mind. 

I looked into his eyes and knew that he 
was going to take the cup from me if he 
had to shoot to get it. But I knew, too, 
that I wasn’t going to give it to him. 

I shook my head. "You can’t, Benny. 
You ...” I broke off and made a sudden 
dive for him. Even as I moved I knew 
I couldn’t make it. Benny’s finger was go- 
ing to tighten on that automatic. 

It thundered. But I didn’t feel any shock 
or pain. I landed in the aisle on my hands 
and knees, twisted around and looked up 
at — ^The Stranger! 

Benny was looking at him, too. And all 
of a sudden he yelled and headed for the 
door. 

The train was already moving, the door 
was closed, but Benny tore it open. I 
climbed to my feet, stairted back for Benny 
and then I heard a yell that I’ll hear to my 
dying day. It was Benny. 

There was a lot of commotion, then. 
People yelled, the conductor pulled the 
cord and the train stopped and backed to 
the station. 

Benny . . . Benny was dead. 

The 125th Street Station is in the heart 
of Harlem, it’s up in the air, like an ele- 
vated and the station platform is about 
three feet above the tra^. When Benny 
jumped the train was already beyond the 
platform. Benny had landed on the ties. 


THE GOLDEN CHALICE 


21 


fell forward on to the next track . . . just 
as another train pulled in on that track. 

I didn’t wait around. There were a half 
dozen policemen around and questions 
were going to be asked — questions I 
didn’t want to answer. I took a subway 
train back to the Grand Central, I bought 
another ticket for Scarsdale and took the 
first train. 

In Scarsdale I took a taxi to Alfred Hal- 
leck’s house in Fox Meadow. I went to 
the front door of the house. 

I didn’t ring the bell. I didn’t have to, 
because the door opened before I got to 
it. It was opened by — The Stranger. I 
wasn’t surprised. Not by then. In fact, I 
would have been surprised if the door had 
been opened by anyone hut The Stranger. 

He smiled at me, in a pleased sort of 
way and said: "I’m glad you brought it 
back. Will you come in, please?’’ 

He led the way to a library, opened the 
door for me and said; "Mr. Halleck!” 

Halleck sitting behind a teakwood desk, 
looked up at me, said: "Yes?” 

I walked across the room and put the 
package on the desk in front of him. "I 
brought back the Golden Chalice.” 

His eyes popped wide open and he 
grabbed the package and tore the newspa- 
per from about it. When he stripped off the 
towel and saw the cup, perspiration came 
to his forehead. He said: "Thank God!” 

Then he looked at me. "Do you mind 
telling me ... I know, I said no questions 
asked and this is not going to go any fur- 
ther . . . did you steal it, or are you return- 
ing diis for someone?” 

I told him. "I stole it. I’m sorry. You 
can call the police.” 

He looked at me in a funny sort of a 
way. "The police?” he repeated. "I’m not 
going to call them. I’m too glad to get 
this back. And here ...” He opened a 
drawer and pulled out a i-hick stack of bills. 
"And here’s the reward — fifteen hundred 
dollars.” 


I shook my head at him. "No, I don’t 
want any reward. Not money. But you 
can do something. Tell me . . . who is 
the man who brought me into this room?” 

He blinked. No one brought you into 
this room. You came in yourself.” 

"But there was a man with me. He — he 
opened the door and brought me to the 
room. He announced your name. ” 

"You said my name,” Halleck replied. 
"And you came in by yourself. There isn’t 
another man in my house. Besides our- 
selves only the cook in the kitchen ... a 
middle-aged woman.” 

I stole it and returned the Golden Chal- 
ice six months ago. Alfred Halleck gave 
me a job. I’m working for him, now. I’m 
a sort of handy-man around his place and 
I’m going with Mr. Halleck on his next 
trip to Asia. He knows all about me. 

All except what I did, the day after 1 
returned the Golden Chalice. I wanted to 
get some things off my mind and I took 
the train back to Grand Central. In the 
washroom on the lower level, I went up 
to the bootblack. Before I could say any- 
thing he grabbed up a couple of big 
brushes and backed away. 

"Don’t you bother me, Mister, I’ll call 
the police!” he yelled. 

I shook my head at him and put a dollar 
bill on one of the seats. Then I took three 
steps away from it. "That dollar’s yours,” 
I told him, "if you tell me exactly what 
you saw here yesterday when I had my 
shoes shined.” 

The bootblack looked at the dollar and 
then at me. He shook his head, mumbled 
in his throat, then said: "Well, sir, you 
and the gent’man with you had a couple 
drinks too many I guess. You started for 
the door, then all of a sudden you got to 
talking and yelling and then you bust out 
of the door like you’d seen a ghost.” 

I nodded. "You’re sure there wasn’t 
another man here at the time — a man 
who’d just come in the door?” 


22 


WEIRD TALES 


The bootblack took another step back. 

'No, sir, there was only the two of you. 
And myself. That’s all there was in here 
. . . no more.” 

I went out, took the Fifth Avenue bus 
and rode down to the Village, then walked 
to the cafe on Sixth Avenue where Benny 
and I had gone for a glass of beer and en- 
countered The Stranger. 

The bartender recognized me right away 
and reached for a bung-starter. "Get out 
of here!” he snarled at me. "I don’t w'ant 
no hop-heads in my place.” 

"I’m sorry,” I said, "but would you 
mind telling me exactly what happened 
here yesterday?” 

His eyes rolled, but he said, "I’ll tell 
you. You and some other dope came in 
here, yelled for a drink, tlien started cut- 
ting up, pretending there was someone else 
here, that you were afraid of. That part- 
ner of yours had it particularly bad. . . .” 


"I guess he did. But you’re sure there 
wasn’t anybody else in here at the time — 
a tall, dark complexioned man?” 

“There w^asn’t no one else in here,” the 
bartender said, grimly. "There hadn’t been 
anyone in for a half hour until you dopes 
came along. ...” 

There was a lot of stuflf in the papers 
for aw'hile about the Golden Chalice. 
Mr. Halleck gave it out, that it had been 
sent back to him, anonymously. 'The 
papers w'ouldn’t believe that; they claimed 
it hadn’t been stolen in the first place, that 
it was a publicity stunt on Halleck’s part. 

TTiat started up another bunch w'ho 
claimed that the Golden Chalice was a fake. 
All of them admitted that it was old and 
that Halleck might even have dug it up in 
Asia Minor, but the chances; of it’s being 
the Golden Chalice were about one in 
eighteen billion. They’re still arguing about 
it. I don’t say anything. Because I know. 




"Sv.'ooping to Hell, spiraling to Heaven, the violin sang accompaniment to the dark voices 

in his brain.” 



By ROBERT BLOCH 


Genius for sde — at a price that could not he repaid in all Eternity. 


T he door of the inn swung open 
and the Devil entered. He was 
as thin as a corpse, and whiter 
than the shroud a corpse lies in. His eyes 
w’ere deep and dark as graves. His mouth 
was redder than the gate of Hell, his hair 
was blacker than the pits below. He 


dressed like a dandy, and he came from a 
fine coach, but it was assuredly he: Satan, 
Father of Lies. 

The innkeeper cringed. He had no 
fancy to play host to this emissary from 
Darkness. The innkeeper trembled under 
Satan’s smile, while his eyes searched 

23 



24 


WEIRD TALES 


Satan’s person for signs of a tail, of cloven 
hoofs. Then he noticed that Satan carried 
a violin-case. 

It was not Satan, then! The innkeeper 
breathed a silent prayer of relief. It was 
only momentary. A minute later he was 
trembling with augmented fear. If this 
was not Satan, this man who looked like 
the Devil and carried a violin-case — then 
it must be 

"Signor Paganini!" whispered mine host. 

The stranger inclined his dark head with 
a slow smile. 

"Welcome,” quavered the innkeeper, but 
there was no smile on his face. It was 
almost as though he preferred confirma- 
tion of his first fear rather than this. Satan 
one could deal with, perhaps — but the 
child of Satan? 

Everyone knew that Paganini was the 
son of the Devil himself. He looked like 
the Devil, and many were the diabolical 
legends concerning his unholy life. He 
was said to drink, gamble, and love like 
the Prince of Darkness, and to entertain 
an equal hatred of all men. Certainly he 
played like Lucifer — in that case under his 
arm he carried an instrument of hellish 
power; a violin whose sublime singing 
drove all Europe mad. 

Yes, even here in this tiny village men 
knew and feared the strange and terrible 
legend that had grown up about the destiny 
of the world’s most famed violinist. New 
and fantastic stories were continually pour- 
ing in from Milan, from Florence, from 
Rome — and half the capitals of the Con- 
tinent as well. "Paganini murdered his 
wife and sold her body to Satan.” "Paga- 
nini has formed a Society against all God- 
loving men.” "Paganini’s mistresses are 
oflfered in the Black Mass.” "Paganini’s 
music is written by the very fiends of 
Hell.” "Paganini is the son of the Devil.” 

Legends these might be, but the atrocious 
conduct attributed to the maestro, that was 
fact- Elis scandalous amours, his disgrace- 


ful attitude toward the great and tlie no- 
bility had been confirmed time and time 
agair. Gossip, slander, malice these things 
were in part. But one shining truth re- 
mained. 

No one had ever played the violin like 
Nicolo Paganini. 

Therefore the innkeeper bowed despite 
his fear. He sent a lad to change horses 
and serve the driver of the coach, ushered 
Signor to the best room, and awaited his 
presence in the parlor of the inn with a 
carefully prepared table. 

Another awaited his presence as w’ell — 
the inkeeper’s son, also called Nicolo. 

Young Nicolo knew even more about 
the great man than his father. The lad 
knew more about the violin than anyone 
in the village, with the exception of Carlo, 
the wine merchant’s son. Both boys had 
studied at tlie local conservatory since early 
childhood, and tliere was keen rivalry be- 
tween them; between their families, each 
of whom fostered the budding genius of 
their heirs. 

Now Nicolo awaited his glimpse of the 
great man. What a triumph over Carlo! 
What a thing to talk about in weeks to 
come! Perhaps he, Nicolo, might even 
speak to the illustrious musician — ^rnight, 
if the saints were kind, receive a word in 
return. But that was almost too much to 
hope for. Paganini was not interested in 
boys. Still, Nicolo was determined to see 
him; he did not fear the legends. So the 
lad waited, working on the preparations 
for the meal in the kitchen with his sensi- 
tive ears attuned to the sound of footsteps 
on the stairs above. 

They came. 

^AGANINI sat in solitary splendor at 
the great table of the inn. No other 
customers were present to stare at the 
great man, and he seemed oddly content 
to be alone — he who loved applause, adula- 
tion, obeisance. His thin, hawk-like face 


THE FIDDLER’S FEE 


25 


— singularly Satanic in the lamp-light it 
was — cast a black blurred shadow on the 
wall behind. His carefully curled hair 
rose in two horn-like projections against 
that shadow, so that the innkeeper noticed 
it as he entered, and nearly spilled the 
wine. 

Paganini ate and drank sparingly — as 
fiends do. He said never a word, nor did 
he exhibit the humanity of smile or scowl. 
When he had finished, he sat back and 
seemed to stare into the candle-flame. 

It was as though his eyes turned home- 
ward to Hell. 

The innkeeper left the room, crossing 
himself. Tliis silent guest was indeed a 
son of Satan! In the passage he came 
upon Nicolo, staring at the pale violinist. 

"No, no! — come away,” the father whis- 
pered. "You must not.” 

But Nicolo, moving as one entranced, 
entered the parlor. A voice that was un- 
like any his father had heard came almost 
mechanically from his throat. 

"Good evening. Signor Paganini.” 

Tlie eyes left the flame, after partaking 
of their glare. A long, deliberate glance 
pierced Nicolo’s face like a dark lance. 

"The whelp knows my name. Well!” 

"I have heard much of you. Signor. 
Who in Italy does not know the name of 
Paganini?” 

“And — fear it,” said the violinist, 
gravely. 

"I do not fear you,” answered the boy, 
slowly. His eyes did not fall when the 
maestro smiled his wolfish smile. 

"Yes?” The voice purred. "Yes; that 
is right. You do not fear me. I feel that. 
And — ^why?” 

"Because I love Music.” 

"Because he loves Music,” parroted 
Paganini, cruelly mimicking the intona- 
tions until the statement stood naked in its 
triteness. Then, slowly, as the stare came 
again: "But you do love Music, boy. I 
feel it — strange.” 


A hand reached out, a pale ghost of a 
hand with great sinews that hinted at 
delicate strength, however paradoxical that 
might seem. The hand gestured Nicolo 
to a seat. The hand poured wine into a 
glass. The hand drummed on the table 
slowly. 

"Do you play?” 

"Y-yes, maestro.” 

"Play for me, then.” 

Nicolo raced to his room. The beloved 
violin rested against his heart as he ran 
back. 

"It is such a poor thing, maestro. It 
does not sing •” 

"Play.” 

Nicolo played. He neyer remembered 
what he played that night; he only knew 
that it came to him, and he played as he 
never had played before. 

And the face of Satan smiled through 
the music. 

Nicolo stopped.' Paganini asked his 
name. He answered. Paganini asked of 
his teacher, his practice, his plans. Nicolo 
answered all questions. And then Paga- 
nini laughed. The innkeeper, listening in 
his turn in the passageway, shuddered 
when he heard that laugh. 

It was a laugh that cracked through the 
earth and came up from Hell. It was the 
laugh of a sobbing violin played by a fallen 
angel in the Pit. 

“Fools!” shouted the maestro. 

Then he stared at Nicolo. Something 
inside the lad begged him to turn away. 
But as he had before, the boy returned 
the stare, until the master musician spoke. 

"What can I say? Should I advise you 
to go to a good teacher, buy a better violin? 
Should I even give you money for that 
purpose? Yes, but to what end? You have 
the gift, but you will never use it.” 

Paganini sneered. 

"You may be competent. You may even 
win small fame, a certain amount of suc- 
cess. But true greatness you cannot 


26 


WEIRD TALES 


achieve through teacher or instrument or 
training. You must be inspired — as I was.” 

Nicolo stood trembling, he knew not 
why. There was a horrible conviction in 
the words he heard. It frightened him, 
that hint of certain authority, of final 
knowledge. 

"A man must compose his own work, 
play his own work,” the voice went on. 
"And no human teacher can give you that 
gift.” 

Suddenly Paganini stood up. 

‘My pardon. I forgot. I came to this 
place because I have an — appointment 
nearby. I cannot keep my — the one I must 
see — ^waiting. I shall go now. But thank 
you for your playing.” 

Nicolo’s face fell. He was convinced 
that in a moment or so more the maestro 
would have revealed sometliing to him 
which he very much wanted to know. For 
Nicolo felt as Paganini did about his work. 
He knew that within him lay great talent; 
knew that any ordinary training would sub- 
due that talent in cliannels of mere me- 
chanical perfection. There was a bond be- 
tween his humble self and the greatness of 
the master before him. And if only Pag- 
anini had spoken! Now it was too late! 

The black cloak swirled as the violinist 
went to the door. Then in a rush of ebony 
Paganini swept back the garment as he 
turned. 

"Wait.” 

He stared, and Nicolo felt his soul lifted 
and examined and torn and probed by the 
red-hot pincers of Paganini’s eyes. 

"Come with me. We shall keep our ap- 
pointment together.” 

An almost audible gasp issued from the 
passageway at the end of the room. Nicolo 
knew it came from his father, listening. 
But he did not care. As the door swung 
against darkness, he moved to the musi- 
cian’s side. They left together. 

"I will apprentice you tliis night to a 
true Master,” Paganini whispered. 


2 

I T WAS a long Avalk up the mountain- 
side to the Cave of Fools. The road 
was lonely in the midnight, but then it 
was always lonely, for men hereabouts 
feared the Cave. The Devil was said to 
dwell in its mists, and the Cave itself was 
unexplored by those who deemed its 
depths led down to Tartarus itself. 

It was a long and lonely walk, and the 
wayVas strange amidst winding paths and 
twisting passages of rock; yet Paganini 
never faltered. He had walked this way 
before. 

Now, the bony hand gripped Nicolo’s 
brown fingers in an icy clasp so filled with 
cold, inhuman strength that the lad shud- 
dered. But he followed through the steam 
and mist and fog that hid the clean light 
of the stars; followed to the moudi of the 
Cave as though impelled by the magic of 
Paganini’s voice. 

For the maestro spoke all that way, and 
spoke without reticence. Sensing a kindred 
soul, he revealed. 

"They say I am a spawn of die Devil, 
and that is a lie. All my life they told me 
so — even my father, cursed fool! In the 
academies my fellow-students made the 
sign of the horns at me and the girls fled 
screaming. 

"They screamed at me, who lived for 
Music and Beauty! But at first I did not 
care. I lived for my work, and I w'orked 
hard. Always I felt within me that spark, 
glowing to a flame. 

, "And then when I made my first ap- 
pearances, I came again into the world of 
men. My music was acclaimed, but I was 
hated, '^ild of the Devil’ they called me, 
because I was ugly, and my temper bad. 
I tried again to drown myself in work, but 
this time it no longer sufficed, because I 
knew my playing was not good enough. I 
had genius, but I could not express it. 
"After a while one begins to reason. 


THE FIDDLER’S FEE 


27 


My work was not enough. The world 
hated me. 'Child of the Devil?’ Why not? 

"I knew the way. I studied. I read the 
old forbidden books I found in the great 
libraries of Florence. And I came here. 
There is a legend of Faust, you knqw. 

"There are ways of meeting Powers 
that grant things to men in return for an 
exchange." 

They entered the Cave now, and when 
Nicolo’s hands trembled at the words the 
musician’s grip tightened. 

"Do not fear, lad. It is worth the cost. 
Thirteen years ago tonight I was just such 
a lad as you; perhaps a bit older. I came 
this way alone, and with the same fears. 
And it was well. 

"When I came forth I had within me 
the gift I craved. Since that time, you 
know, all the world knows, my story. 
Fame, wealth, beautiful women — all 
earthly success is mine to command. But 
more than that; greater than that, is my 
Music. I learned to compose, and to play. 
They say His songs moved the angels and 
the stars. I have that gift. And you, who 
know, love, and have born within you. 
Music — you shall this night partake of the 
same gift.” 

N ICOLO wanted to run, to get out of 
this deep cavern where the steam 
swirled in fantastic shapes. He wanted to 
make the sign of the cross as he heard the 
bubbling and the booming from the depths 
ahead. And then a curious picture came 
to his mind — ^the vision of Carlo Zuttio, 
the wine-merchant’s son. Carlo went to 
the conservatory, and he was a fool. But 
he had a better violin, and private lessons, 
so that he played more masterfully than 
Nicolo. And his parents were wealthy, 
and they boasted to Nicolo’s father of their 
son and his music. The whole town knew 
that Carlo would go on to the big school 
in Milan. He, Nicolo, would not go on — 
he would remain and take over the inn. 


and sometime when he was old and fat he 
might play at country weddings for drinks. 
Carlo would be rich and famous, and wear 
silk when he returned to visit. Nicolo 
would no longer be a rival, then; merely a 
country innkeeper. 

It was this vision, and no love of Music 
that came to Nicolo in the bowels of the 
earth. It was this vision that made him 
smile and follow Paganini as they ad- 
vanced into the heart of the hot smoke and 
knelt upon the stones in the darkness. 

Then Paganini called a Secret Name 
and the earth thundered. He made a sign 
not of the cross, and he prayed in a voice 
that was black and crawling. 

Then the mists grew red and the thun- 
dering swelled, and Nicolo was formally 
introduced to his Teacher. 

^ 3 

P AGANINI had been crafty. It was a 
bargain. Three years for him, and no 
more; where Paganini had gained thirteen. 
But the other ten years went to the maestro 
as payment for leading the way. It was a 
fair arrangement; a business arrangement. 

That was what shocked Nicolo more 
than anything else when he returned home. 
It had all been so business-like. There was 
behind it a terrible hint erf purpose; the 
Power knew what it was doing — there was 
no aimlessness, no blind evil. It was all 
so arranged. 

Three years. 

But there was singing in Nicolo’s heart, 
singing which over-rode the sound of his 
father’s quavering prayers, singing which 
rose to triumphant heights when he played 
at the conservatory the next afternoon. 

"Paganini taught me,” is all that Nicolo 
would say w'hen the faculty exclaimed. 
"Paganini taught me," Nicolo told Carlo 
with a smile. 

The singing rose higher as the weeks 
passed. 


28 


WEIRD TALES 


Nicolo, who read notes poorly, com- 
posed. 

Nicolo improvised. 

The faculty bought him a new violin, 
and on the festival day it was Nicolo who 
appeared as soloist with tlie orcliestra from 
Venice; though Carlo was second in com- 
petition for the post. 

Nicolo won the scholarship and went to 
Milan. 

His father prayed but said nothing. 
Paganini did not write, but word came of 
his triumphs in France. 

In Milan, Nicolo was a sensation at the 
school. Carlo came too, his parents paying 
his tuition; and Carlo was successful. He 
studied hard, v^orked diligently, played ex- 
pertly. 

But Nicolo’s soaring tones were born of 
inspiration within. He was mastering a 
technique against which mere practise 
could not compete. 

Through the year it was a constant com- 
petition between the two country boys — 
Nicolo and Carlo. The whole school knew 
it Nicolo had tlie talent. Carlo had the 
ambition. The battle for perfection was 
deadly. 

Nicolo was aging. His face was already 
maturing in set lines, and the color had 
left it set and harsh. It was whispered 
that his nights were spent in study that 
left him wasted. 

The truth was that Nicolo’s nights were 
spent in fear. He was remembering the 
tryst in the Cave of Fools, and he was an- 
ticipating the days to come. Only two 
years now — and so much to do! 

He had been a fool. But Paganini’s per- 
sonality had overshadowed his own, domi- 
nated it. He had been led. He knew that 
now. Paganini had wanted a dupe, so that 
he might make such a bargain and extend 
his own life at the expense of another’s. 
That is why he had taken Nicolo. Nicolo 
often wondered, just what might have hap- 
pened had Paganini gone alone to his ac- 


counting. He wondered, because in two 
years he must go — and there would be no 
dupe for him. 

Two years! Nicolo would toss on his 
pillow and shudder at the thought. He 
could not hope to do what Paganini had 
done in thirteen. He could not win much 
but initial acclaim; none of the fame and 
the riches would be his in so short a time. 
But one thing he could do — beat his rival. 
Carlo. 

Nicolo hated Carlo now. He hadn’t 
used to hate him. They had been rivals, 
but friendly enough. Ever since that night 
in the Cave of Fools Nicolo had luted. 

Carlo was keeping up. Nicolo found 
that his work came to him almost effort- 
lessly. His hands moved without thought 
along the bow, and his fingering seemed 
undirected. There was no triumphant 
thrill for him in his music, no sense of 
mastery in his easy playing. 

Carlo had this, because Carlo had to 
work and sweat to compete, and when he 
did so he felt satisfied. Moreover, aided 
by no supernatural gift. Carlo was compet- 
ing too closely for comfort. 

And the school liked Carlo. The teach- 
ers knew his work and praised him for it. 
They did not praise Nicolo because they 
could not understand his methods. He 
puzzled them. 

The other pupils liked Carlo. He had 
money, and he was generous. He bought 
sweets for his friends, laughed witli them 
at their parties. Nicolo had no money for 
sweets, no fine clothes for parties. The 
pupils were in awe of him, and they dis- 
trusted his face. 

Carlo was handsome, too. The girls liked 
Carlo. Even Elissa^ liked him. And that 
added to the agony of Nicolo’s nights. 

4 

T^LISSA’S hair was yellow flame on a 
^ pillow. Elissa’s eyes were the jewels 
on the breast of Passion. Elissa’s mouth 


/ 


THE HDDLER’S FEE 


29 


was a red gateway to delight. Elissa’s arms 
were 

It was no use. Nicolo couldn’t think of 
anything more poetic. All he knew was 
that Elissa burned within him at all times. 
Her beauty was like a lash across his naked 
heart. 

Actually, Elissa Robbia was a very pretty 
blond student, but Nicolo was in love and 
Youth knows only a goddess. 

Elissa walked with Carlo, and she went 
to parties with him, and they danced at the 
festival together. Throughout the second 
year they were together always. 

Always Nicolo watclied from the corner. 
Once or twice he spoke to the object of 
his worship, but she did not seem to notice 
him, despite his efforts to be ingratiating. 
She preferred the handsome Carlo. 

So Nicolo worked. He outplayed Carlo, 
though it was not easy now. Despite 
Nicolo’s secret power. Carlo seemed in- 
spired by love. Carlo followed his most 
difficult trills, mastered every detail of the 
well-nigh flawless technique which Nicolo 
mastered. 

Still, Nicolo triumphed always in the 
end. The better teachers were now con- 
founded by tlie spectacle of their two not- 
able students. Often outsiders witnessed 
performances. The Opera sent conductors 
down to listen, and notables from all over 
the South attended the salons in local aris- 
tocratic homes when the star pupils played. 

Nothing was said officially, but it was 
understood that one or the other of the 
boys would be groomed for concert debut 
within the year. 

Both of them knew it, though they no 
longer spoke to each other. Both of them 
worked frantically. The final concert of 
the season would decide; they suspected 
that. Both had been asked for a perform- 
ance of some solo composition. 

Nicolo went to work a month in ad- 
vance. What took place in his dark room 
will never be known, but he emerged with 


what he felt was a true masterpiece. He 
had worked as never before. He would 
win, he would shame Carlo before them 
all; shame him before Elissa. 

He could hardly wait for the night. 

The stage of the school was lighted and 
th. house was filled with those of a sta- 
don to allow their jewels to reflect that 
i'lght. Rumor had passed, and in the audi- 
ence were musical notables from all Italy. 
And the Master was there, too — yes, the 
great Paganini himself! Come to watch 
Nicolo, his former pupil, they said. 

What a triumph! Nicolo shivered with 
ecstasy, fondling his violin as he waited 
in the wings for the solos to end. To- 
night he would appear before Paganini 
himself when he took victory over his rival. 
Nothing could make his happiness more 
complete! 

Where was Carlo, by the way.? He had 
not appeared in the wings as yet. 

But — there he was — in the audience! 
With Elissa. 

What did this mean? 

A number ended. The director was an- 
nouncing his name. 

"Unfortunately the soloist who was to 
compete with Signor Nicolo this evening. 
Carlo Zuttio . . 

What was that? ^ 

"Resigned from the school . . 

Yes? 

"Marriage to . . .” 

Married! To Elissa! 

He had done that, knowing he would 
lose tonight he’d given up music, retired 
to his father’s business, and married 
Elissa. And now he had arranged for it 
to be announced, to rob Nicolo of his vic- 
tory! Bitter despair rose in Nicolo’s heart, 
and black anger. 

But when his name was called he 
stepped 'forth and played. 

He played his number, but it was not 
the original he had planned. For now he 
improvised; or rather, hate improvised for 


30 


WEIRD TALES 


him. Hate tore at the strings, plucked 
frenetically at a flayed violin. 

And waves of horror crept through the 
house. 

Through red mists, the black eyes of 
Paganini blazed, the smile dropped from 
Carlo’s face, the lips of Elissa grew pale. 
Nicolo saw her eyes grow blank, and 
poured his music into them. She had never 
noticed him before, eh? Well, she would 
not forget him now — ^not this, and this. 

Swooping to Hell, spiraling to Heaven, 
shrieking and whispering of damnation 
and glory, the violin sang accompaniment 
to dark voices that yammered in Nicolo ’s 
brain. 

Nicolo had no arms, no fingers. He was 
all violin. His body was part of tlie instru- 
ment, his brain a part of the song. Both 
were being played by Another. 

He finished. v 

Silence. 

Then the thunder. 

And while he bowed and smiled and 
the sound tore at his ear-drums, his eyes 
blazed into Elissa’s empty face through 
the standing crowd. 

Nicolo had won and lost tonight. But 
he would win again. 

■” 5 

T hey came to him after the concert. 

They offered him money, for private 
study. 

In a year, they said, he would come 
back and perform in a solo concert at the 
school. 

Nicolo accepted the money gravely. It 
was supposed that he would use that 
money to spend his year in Rome, working 
under the great maestri as a private pupil. 

But Nicolo had other plans. He knew 
that Carlo and Elissa would return to the 
village, and he meant to follow them there. 
He thanked the directors of the school and 
prepared to depart. 


In the hallway stood a cloaked figure. 
It was Paganini. 

Without a word the pale genius took 
Nicolo ’s hand, just as he had that night 
two years before. Together they walked 
the dark streets. 

"You played well tonight, my son. They 
said your music was like Paganini’s.” He 
smiled. "And well it might be, since we 
study under the same Master.” 

Nicolo shuddered. 

"Do not fear. In a year’s time you shall 
haye had all the fame and glory you de- 
sire. The world will bow before your 
power. That is as you desired, no?” 

“No.” Nicolo shook his head. “I shall 
not study and I shall not go to Rome. My 
desire lies elsewhere.” He told Paganini 
of Carlo and Elissa. The maestro listened. 

"So you return to the village, eh? Well, 
if it is that what you seek, I am sure you 
will be aided in your quest. Do not despair.” 

Nicolo sighed. 

"I am afraid of that aid. This music — 
this playing — it is not a part of me. It 
comes from other sources, and I feel no 
satisfaction in stirring my listeners. Carlo 
and Elissa were stirred tonight; but it was 
the music that did it, not myself. Don’t 
you understand?” 

A cold whisper bit through the darkness 
as Paganini spoke. 

"Yes, I understand, perfectly; but you 
do not. Tonight you played through hate, 
and there was hate in the hall. But when 
you go to Elissa, you will play through 
love. She will be stirred. For our Master 
is eminently successful in amours. Let your 
violin speak and she shall become yours.” 

"But what of him? What of Carlo?” 

"Again, let yoxur violin speak. It has a 
voice that drives men mad. Let him hear 
that voice.” 

A slow laugh crawled out of Paganini’s 
lips. 

“I know how it will be. Ah, I know! 
Years ago I discovered that secret, and well 


\ 

THE FIDDLER’S FEE 


have I used it. Madden the cuckold and 
woo the mistress, and rejoice in the gift 
of the Teacher! I envy you your year, my 
friend. It will be a great triumph for you.” 

Nicolo’s heart was pounding. 

"You really believe I can do it?” he 
asked. 

"Certainly. You were given the power; 
let it guide you to your purpose.” Pag- 
anini’s voice grew grave. "But it was not 
of that which I proposed to speak when I 
awaited you this evening. There is another 
thing. 

"I want to remind you that a year 
from tonight you have an appointment in 
the Cave of Fools.” 

"I am afraid.” 

"It was a bargain, and you must go." 

"What if I do not go?” 

"That I cannot speak of. He will come 
for you then, I know it. He will revenge 
himself horribly.” 

*T wish,” and Nicolo’s voice was low 
with hatred, "I wish that I had never met 
you. You led me to this — tricked me into 
this infernal bargain! I was a fool, and I 
should kill you for it.” 

Paganini stopped and faced the youth. 
His eyes were ice. 

"Perhaps. But think — think of the com- 
ing year. You shall win Elissa, and drive 
Carlo mad. Win Elissa and drive Carlo 
mad. Win Elissa and drive Carlo 
mad ” 

His voice was like his violin, playing 
and replaying the same damnable, wheed- 
ling trill until it surged through Nicolo’s 
brain. 

"Think not of revenge. Go to the Cave 
of Fools a year from tonight; but first, 
win Elissa and drive Carlo mad ” 

Still whispering the words, Paganini 
turned in the darkness and disappeared. 
And Nicolo walked the streets, muttering 
to himself: 

"I shall win Elissa and drive Carlo 
mad.” 


31 

6 

4 

N icolo did not stay at his father’s 
inn when he returned. He had money 
now, and he procured rooms in town — ■ 
rooms below the apartment of the newly- 
wed couple he had followed. 

He did not see them for a month. He 
was in his dark room with the violin. He 
played in darkness now, for he needed 
no notes in this composition. He developed 
only two themes. One was soft and sweet 
and tender, thrilling was passionate beauty. 
As Nicolo played, his face would glow in 
ecstasy and warmth flooded his being. 

The second theme slithered out of the 
darkness. Then it padded. Then it began to 
run, and leap, and dance. At first it 
squeaked like a rat, then it howled like a 
dog, finally it bayed like a black wolf. It 
was a fiendish howling of terrific power, 
and when Nicolo played it his hands 
trembled and he closed his eyes. 

For a month Nicolo played the two 
themes over and over in his tiny room — 
alone. Not quite alone, for there was a 
whispering in his brain that prompted each 
tone, and an unseen hand that guided the 
bow over the Strings. Nicolo played and 
played, and he grew thin and gaunt. After 
a month the music was a part of him, and 
he was ready. ., 

It took him a week to become friendly 
with his neighbors again. In another week 
he had learned their habits; knew when 
Carlo worked at the wine-press and left 
Elissa alone. 

Then, one afternoon, Nicolo visited 
Elissa. She sat regal in her blond beauty 
while they talked, and after a while Nicolo 
suggested that he play something for her. 
He took out his violin and drew the bow 
across the strings, eyes on her face. 

His eyes never left her face while he 
played. His eyes feasted on her face as 
the music feasted on her. soul. 

The tune came forth, reiterated; in end- 


32 


WEIRD TALES 


less variations it rose in soaring rhapsody. 
And Elissa rose in soaring rhapsody and 
came toward him, her eyes empty save for 
the soul-filling majesty of the music. 

Then Nicolo put down the violin and 
took her in his arms. 

He came the next day, and the next. 
Always he brought his violin. Always he 
played and always she surrendered to the 
music. 

For months Nicolo was happy. For 
many months he played each day, and his 
nights w(?re peaceful at last. Carlo sus- 
pected nothing. 

Nicolo began to plan. In a little while 
he would return to Milan for the solo 
concert. After that he w'ould be famous — 
go on tour. He had, under the inspiration 
of his love, written enough to insure his 
success at the debut. He would take 
Elissa with him, and together they would 
scale the heights. 

Then he remembered. 

He could not go to Milan, or the con- 
cert. That night he had an appointment in 
the Cave of Fools. 

Nicolo didn’t want to die. He didn’t 
want to give his soul. 'That cursed bar- 
gain! 

But there was no way out. 

Every day he saw Elissa he longed for 
life with greater fervor. Knowing the end 
was near, he came oftener, took greater 
and greater chances. He was counting the 
hours now, the minutes. 

Three days before the time appointed he 
went there in the evening. Carlo would 
be late at the wine-press, so Nicolo played. 
Elissa sat there, her flee blank as it always 
was when he played. Sometimes Nicolo 
would find himself wishing that he had 
no music to do his wooing — that he him- 
self would inspire such adoration in the 
woman he loved. But tliat was too much to 
hope for; Elissa loved Carlo, and only the 
music gave her to Nicolo. It sufiiced. The 
spell was strong. Nicolo played tonight as 


he had never played before, and as the 
music rose it drowned out the sound of 
footsteps on the stairs. 

Carlo was in the room. 

ICOLO stopped playing. 

Elissa’s eyes opened as though she 
were wakening from profound depths of 
sleep. 

And Carlo faced them both. He was a 
big man. Carlo, with strong hands that 
now opened and closed convulsively at his 
sides. Carlo’s heavy body was lunging 
across the room and the hands moved for 
Nicolo’s tliroat. 

They never reached it. 

Nicolo’s delicate hands were on the 
violin. He began to play. 

It was not the love-strain that he played 
this time. It was the other — the song of 
madness. 

At the sound of tlie rat-like squeaking 
Carlo stopped. Nicolo watched him as the 
shrieking mounted. Carlo’s eyes grew 
wide. The shrieking became a moan. Car- 
lo’s wide eyes were growing red. The 
moaning was a rising bark„ a yelp of 
agony. Carlo’s hands went to his head. He 
stepped back, sank to his knees. 'Tlien 
Nicolo played. The violin screamed, the 
bow moved up and down upon it like a 
red-hot poker descending on human flesh. 
Nicolo played until Carlo lay rolling on 
the floor, baying in rhythm as the foam 
poured from his lips. Nicolo played until 
the room pulsed with horrid sound, until 
the glass shivered with the vibration and 
the candlelight wavered and the flame 
danced in agony. Nicolo played, and then 
he stopped. 

Carlo lay there moaning, and he rose to 
his knees and looked at Nicolo. Then he 
looked at Elissa. 

Nicolo followed his glance. 

■ Elissa — ^lie had forgotten Elissa! He had 
played the music of madness and forgotten 
she was in the room. 



THE FIDDLER’S FEE 


33 


Elissa lay where she had fallen and her 
face was white with the unmistakable 
whiteness of death. Carlo looked at her 
and began to laugh. 

Nicolo sobbed. Tears rolled down his 
cheeks. 

Husband and lover laughed and sobbed 
together. 

It was all over. She was dead, and he 
was mad. And two nights from now 
Nicolo must go to that rendezvous in the 
Cave of Fools. 

So this was Satan’s gift! This awful 
mockery was what it had brought him. 

The dead woman lay on the floor as the 
madman crawled toward her, cackling. 

Nicolo rose to go. His bow accidentally 
scraped the strings. The mad Carlo rose, 
laughing, and seized the violin. He broke 
it across the bridge and hurled it from the 
window. 

Still laughing, he turned, but there was 
no sane hatred in his eyes. 

And tlien the thought came to Nicolo. 

"Carlo,” he whispered. "Carlo.” 

The idiot husband laughed. 

"Carlo, your wife is dead. But I did 
not kill her. I swear it. It was the Devil, 
Carlo. The Devil who dwells in the Cave 
of Fools. You want to avenge your wife’s 
death, don’t you. Carlo? Tlren seek out the 
Devil two nights from tonight in the Cave 
of Fools. Remember, Carlo— two nights 
from tonight in the Cave of Fools. I will 
stay with you until then and tell you where 
to go.” 

The madman laughed. 

Softly, Nicolo repeated his suggestion. 
He whispered it all that night as the de- 
ranged Carlo slept. He whispered it the 
next day as they sat beside the body of the 
dead woman. At last, when Nicolo rose to 
leave on the coach for Milan, he felt that 
Carlo understood and would go. Smiling, 
the violinist withdrew, leaving the chuck- 
ling lunatic and his dead wife in the dark 
room. 


7 

I N THE night of travel Nicolo smiled 
bitterly but often. It had worked out 
after all! He would trick Satan then; send- 
ing Carlo in his stead. Thus he could play 
the concert and go on to fame. Poor Elissa 
was dead, of course, but there were other 
women to hear the song of love. It was 
good. 

It was good to hear the praise in Milan. 
His old teachers spoke, his friends gath- 
ered around him and whispered of the 
celebrities who would attend the concert 
tonight. 

Nicolo was so busy that day that he for- 
got a very important item. Indeed, he had 
just finished a meal in his dressing-room 
when he remembered. 

Carlo had broken his violin! 

Confused by tragedy, by lack of sleep 
and overmuch planning, it had slipped 
Nicolo’s thoughts. His violin — not a 
precious instrument to him, for Nicolo 
knew that he could produce his music on 
any violin. Still, it was necessary. 

He rose to summon the director, when 
the door opened. Carlo entered. 

Carlo was mad. His eyes glittered and 
his teeth were bared, but he walked erect. 
He was able to control himself sufficiently 
to pass unnoticed, it seemed. 

Nicolo, beholding him, nearly froze on 
the spot. A wave of fear rose chokingly 
in his throat. 

"Carlo — ^why are you here? Don’t you 
remember — the Cave of Fools and your 
appointment?” 

Carlo grinned. 

"I went last night, Nicolo,” he whis- 
pered. "I went last night. Tonight I am 
here to see you play. You will be playing 
soon, Nicolo.” 

Nicofo stammered wildly. "But — but 
what did you find in the Cave? I mean — 
there was One who waited, and he wanted 
something from you ?,” 


34 


WEIRD TALES 


Carlo grinned wider. 

"Do not trouble yourself. I gave Him 
what He wanted. It was all arranged last 
night.” 

"You mean that?” Nicolo whispered. 
"You gave your soul?" 

"I gave my soul. We made a bargain,” 
Carlo chuckled. 

"Then why are you here?” 

"To bring you this. I broke your violin, 
and tonight you must pla.y.” 

Carlo thrust a bundle into Nicolo’s 
hands. At that moment the prompter en- 
tered. 

"Maestro! The concert is starting. You 
are wanted on stage. Oh, what a crowd is 
here for your debut! Ah, tliere has never 
been such a tribute — you played but once, 
a year ago, but they remember and have 
returned. It is wonderful! But hurry, 
hurry!” 

Nicolo left, and the grinning Carlo fol- 
lowed, standing in the wings as the violin- 
ist stepped on the stage. In his confusion, 
Nicolo unwrapped the parcel and tossed 
the paper to the wings as he took the violin 
and bow in his hands and faced the ap- 
plauding audience. 

Nicolo’s eyes sparkled. This was 
triumph! 

His heart was light within him. Fame 
was here, and poor Carlo had settled mat- 
ters with the Master. He had made a bar- 
gain, and that did not concern Nicolo. 
What concerned him was that he was free, 
and this was the greatest evening of his 
life, and he would play as he had never 
played before. 

Automatically he gripped the violin and 
raised it to his chin. It felt heavy; an ordi- 
nary instrument. But it would suffice. Poor 
Carlo was mad; bringing a violin to the 
man who had killed his wife! 

But — play. 

Yes, play with the Devil’s gift, play the 
Devil’s love-song that won Elissa. Let it 
win the audience tonight. What matter 


the violin, or Carlo cliuckling in the wings? 
Play! 

N icolo played. His how stroked the 
opening strains of the melody. But 
a droning arose. 

What was wrong? 

Nicolo tried to correct his stroke. But 
his fingers moved automatically. He tried 
to stop. 

But his fingers, his wrist, his arm 
moved on. He could not stop. The power 
within him would not swerve. And the 
droning increased. 

This was the song of madness! 
Nicolo’s fingers flew, his arm flailed. 
He fought, trying to hold back. But the 
sounds increased. Rats scurried and chit- 
tered and then the hounds of Hell began 
to bark. Fiends brayed in his brain. 

Yes — in his brain. 

The audience, he dimly realized, was 
hooting and jeering. They were not being 
driven mad by the music. He was! 

Nicolo closed his eyes, clenched his jaw 
to .make the violin slip; and still it played. 
Fie w’anted to think of something else, 
anything but the music that now shrieked 
in his skull. A vision of Paganini’s Satanic 
face, of Elissa’s dead features, of Carlo’s 
mad red eyes, of the black Cave of Fools 
where he should be tonight— these things 
swept on w'ings of horror through his 
brain. And then the music broke through 
and Nicolo fiddled madly. 

Eyes jerked open and stared down at the 
violin — at the coarse wood, the peculiar 
strings, the ghastly bridge glistening with 
pearly brilliance. 

And then the voice of the music 
screamed the truth to him. Mad Carlo 
had gone to the Cave of Fools l^t night, 
to make a bargain. He had said that, and 
Nicolo had believed that it meant he was 
free. But w'hat had that bargain been? 

Carlo had sold his soul for vengeance. 
What could that vengeance be? 


THE FIDDLER’S FEE 


55 


That One had told him to make this 
violin! 

And now Nicolo stared at the violin — 
the violin he was helplessly playing, but 
which made a music that drove him mad. 

Nicolo stared at the coarse wood. He 
had seen such wood before. Where? 
Why did it remind him of Elis so? 

The wood was stained red; ghastly red. 
Why did the red stain remind him of 
Elissa? 

Music thundered in Nicolo’s ears, and 
still he played and stared. 

The glistening bridge of the violin was 
pearly. Why did that bridge remind him 
of Elissa? 

The bridge grinned up at Nicolo, 
grinned insanely as Elissa had grinned 
when she was driven mad by music. Tlie 
violin tones rose to a shattering crescendo, 
and Nicolo staggered. His blurring eyes 
glanced at the golden strings of the vio- 
lin that were singing his doom. In a 
burst of ghastly fear he seemed to recog- 
nize them. 

Why did those strings remind him of 
Elissa? 

And then he understood. 

The music he was playing was the music 
that had driven her to madness, to death. 
In some way this violin now held her 
soul 

He was not playing a violin, he was 
playing her soul, and its madness was 
pouring out to drive him mad! 

He looked down again as the shrieking 
music rose in his ears, and he saw. 


He did not hold a violin in his arms, 
but the dead body of a woman — the body 
of Elissa. He was playing on her body, 
playing on the gray ghost of her body, 
drawing the bow across long golden 
strands that he recognized in a final burst 
of fear that tore his brain to shreds. 

Nicolo played her body like a violin and 
drew the madness out into his own being, 
and then he recognized the wood, the 
stain, the bridge, and the horribly familiar 
strings. 

That was why Elissa’s soul was in the 
violin! 

Nicolo suddenly began to laugh, in- 
sanely, and the music rose to drown out 
his laughter as he held the horrible thing 
playing in his arms. Then with a lurch 
Nicolo fell, face black with agony. 

The curtains dropped, the hysterical 
manager ran to the dead body of the vio- 
linist. 

Then tlie madman that was Carlo crept 
slyly from the wings and crouched over 
the body, tittering in a slirill voice. He 
took die violin from the dead Nicolo’s 
breast and laughed. 

His fingers lovingly caressed the wood 
he had carved from Elissa’s coffin, the 
stain of blood he had drawn from Elissa’s 
body, the pearly teeth on the bridge he 
had taken from Elissa’s throat. And 
finally, his fingers fell to stroking the 
long, smooth golden strings on which the 
music of madness had been played — ^the 
long, golden strands of dead Elissa’s 
hair. 




'”Thc rabbits had felled him. They were swarming around and upon him.” 



By CANS T. FIELD 

One hardly thinks of rabbits as murderous wild beasts, and yet— 
' The author of "The Witch’s Cat” and "Fearful 
Rock” has a theory. 


", . . there are a hundred things one has 
to know, which we understand and you don’t, 
as yet. I mean passwords, and signs, and 
sayings which have power and efifect, and 
plants you carry in your pocket, and verses 
you repeat, and dodges and tricks you prac- 
tise; all simple enough when you know them, 
but they’ve got to be known. . . .” 

— Kenneth Grahame, 

■<’ The Wind in the Willows 


A T A POINT about four miles out 
/\ of Crispinville, a lean-looking 
1 \ rabbit, with black-and-white 

smudgings on the gray of his ears and lcn~ 
hind legs, came flopping out on the pave- 
ment and paused in full way of the car. 
Morgan Pitts put on the brakes, drew out 
a handkerchief and mopped the summer 


36 


THE DREADFUL RABBITS 


37 


heat from his flushed, seamed brow. He 
said, with casual courtesy; "Howdy, Mis- 
ter Rabbit!” 

The animal immediately finished its 
crossing of the road, and sat up in a tus- 
sock of grass, gazing while Pitts started tlie 
car again. Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant, 
big and blond and bespectacled, returned 
the gaze of those bulging black eyes. Tliey 
seemed to have a green flash in tliem. He 
made no remark, but appeared deeply in- 
terested, and he was. He had come all the 
way to CrispinvUle for tire very purpose 
of learning about the custom of rabbit- 
greeting. 

After they rounded a curve and left tlie 
, little town well out of sight, Judge Pur- 
suivant ventured his query; 

"Ho'-v old is that custom of speaking to 
rabbits, Mr. Pitts? And how did it start?” 

Pitts scratched his grizzled head. He 
was little and spry-looking, with a face as 
red as a rooster’s comb. "Dimno, Judge 
Pursuiv^ji- Ain’t kept up much on things, 
been pretty busy with my work. But I 
guess it’s been goin’ on since the Year 
One. . . .” He took a hand from the 
wheel and pointed ahead. "There’s my 
place, up yonder, next to Hungry Hill. 
Your friend’s rented a room there for you. 
You and him are my only boarders this 
summer.” 

A phrase had caught the judge’s ear. 
"Hungry Hill?” he repeated, and gazed at 
tlie great green swelling, with its thatchy 
covering of evergreen brush and thicket. 
"It doesn’t look hungry.” 

"I think that’s the old Injun name. 
And there’s a cave or pit, like an open 
mouth — ” The driver broke off. "Well, 
here we are, getting there.” 

The house nestled comfortably at the 
foot of the big hill, with plump-looking 
trees around it — a house old and modest, 
but well built and well kept, with a stable 
and barn and rail-enclosed stock pen be- 
hind. 


As the car stopped, someone came 
out on tlie porch and waved a long arm, 
then hurried down to shake hands with 
Pursuivant. 

It was Ransome. He looked much im- 
proved in health and spirits since Pur- 
suivant had last seen him, at New York in 
early spring. The doctors had apparently 
sent him to the right part of tlie country 
to get over his nervous breakdown. He 
was still gaunt, but there was color in his 
flat checks and sparkle in the dark eyes set 
deep under the bushy brows. Ransome 
was forty and looked younger, with a 
square, shallow jaw and black hair and 
mustache like curls of astrakhan. 

"I saw your train come in, over yonder 
along the horizon,” he told the judge, 
"and I sat out here to wait for Mr. Pitts 
to bring you back. Gime on, both of you, 
and have a drink.” 

HTHEY followed him into a pleasant 
front room, with ancient flower-figured 
paper and white-painted woodwork, and 
massive old furniture that was older and 
better preserved than any of them. Ran- 
some had set out a tray, with bottles, 
glasses, and a bowl of cracked ice. 

"I thought that rabbit legend would 
fetch you when I wrote to you about it,” 
he said to Pursuivant. "You collect such 
things, don’t you? Hard to believe — but 
I’ve seen the bunny greeted on every road 
and path in Crispinville Township.” 

"Mr. Pitts here told me something about 
it,” said Pursuivant. "Not much, though 
— not as much as I’d like to hear.” 

"Nobody seems to know much about 
it,” Ransome said, pouring. "It’s pretty 
well a local thing. Over in tlie next 
county, people hadn’t even heard of it — 
said I was making it up. There’s ice here, 
gentlemen. Take it or leave it?” 

"Take it,” said Pitts, with relish. 

"Leave it,” said Pursuivant, "and not 
mudi soda. ... If you haven’t any infor- 


38 


WEIRD TALES 


mation, Ransome, you must have a theory. 
You skeptics always have theories.” 

Ransome poured whiskey and spurted 
soda into the glasses. "Hnnn,” he said, 
"might be a Negro thing — this used to be 
slave territory. One storekeeper in Crispin- 
ville thinks it may have come from the 
first English colonists; again, it might be 
Indian. But what keeps it so local? Can’t 
you tell us, Pitts?” 

"Not me,” said Pitts, his eyes on the 
dewy glass held out to him. 

They all drank. Pursuivant wiped his 
blond mustache. His spectacles were full 
of thoughtful lights. 

"The rabbit’s a great figure in folklore,” 
he observed. "A witch named Julian Cox 
was tried in England in the l660’s, for 
turning into a rabbit. And Jules de Gran- 
din once told me that southern French 
will turn back from a day’s work because a 
hare hopped across their trail — bad luck, 
like a black cat.” 

"Never heard that,” rejoined Ransome. 
"Of course, de Grandin’s a fable-collector, 
like you. Of course, I read Uncle Remus 
when I was a boy — plenty of rabbit stuff 
there.” 

"And I usedito carry the left hind foot 
of a graveyard rabbit for luck,” contrib- 
uted Pitts, sipping at his highball. 

Pursuivant was also turning over the 
Uncle Remus tales in his jnind. They 
were impressive and sometimes grim, for 
all the bright humor of Joel Chandler 
Harris. Br’er Rabbit, seemingly so harm- 
less and plausible, had tricked all the 
larger and fiercer creatures in self-defense, 
or for profit, or for mere cruel fun; hadn’t 
Br’er Wolf been deluded into killing his 
own children, and Br’er Fox shunted into 
a fire so that all his progeny looked singed, 
down into the present day? 

“Don’t you think,” Ransome was say- 
ing, "that you’re paying too much atten- 
tion to a silly little custom — a triviality?” 

"Hey,” protested Pitts, taking his nose 


from his glass, “it ain’t silly v/hen it’s a 
township ordinance — you can’t even hunt 
rabbits.” 

"And there are no trivialities in life, as 
Sherlock Holmes or somebody said,” 
added Pursuivant. "As Mr. Pitts sug- 
gests, there must be a good reason for 
making the rule, and for observing it as 
well.” 

Ransome laughed loudly. His own 
drink had been long and strong, and he 
was at the bottom of it. “Time for me 
to do some missionary work,” said he. 
Rising, he took two objects from the 
table. 

They were the stock and barrels of an 
excellent shotgun, and they snideed 
neatly together in his knowing hands. He 
grinned above the weapon. “It’s summer, 
and rabbit’s aren’t fit to eat, but just for 
the sake of smashing a superstition — ” 
And he fed tw’o shells into the double 
breech. 

Pitts got up. "Better not do it, Mr. 
Ransome. It’s ’gainst the law.” 

'Til pay any fine, or whatever,” laughed 
Ransome. 

Pursuivant also rose, and set down his 
empty glass. “I want to go back to town 
and look into the community records. I’ll 
leave my suitcase, and be back before sun- 
down.” 

"Shall I run you back in the car?” of- 
fered Pitts. 

“No, thanks. It’s fine weatlier and 
lovely country, and only four miles. I’ll 
walk.” Pursuivant turned to Ransome. 
"Promise me you won’t go rabbit-hunting 
until I return.” 

"Oh, all right,” Ransome agreed, and 
stood the gun in a corner. He saw the 
judge to the door. 

C RISPINVILLE was not the coiuity 
seat, but Pursuivant knew that there 
would be a township trustee, a clerk and 
a constable. When he reached the ham- 


THE DREADFUL RABBITS 


let, he approved once again the well- 
painted old houses and the quaint little 
stores with canopy-like arcades jutting 
out over the wo(^en sidewalk, admired 
the square-steepled church that dominated 
all. He estimated that what Pitts called 
"the Year One” for this community 
would be well before the middle of the 
Eighteenth Century. 

"There were settlers here before Daniel 
Boone’s time,” he thought, and inquired 
for the home of the township clerk. Find- 
ing it, he introduced himself. 

The clerk was a frail ancient named 
Simmons, who prided himself on having 
most of his teeth and needing no spec- 
tacles. He was vague about old records, 
and only when Pursuivant pleaded did he 
pry into the clutter of files and trunks 
that jammed a rear room of his house. 

"I been the Chrispinville clerk for forty- 
four years,” he grumbled, "and nobody 
never asked to see them original papers. 
Hull, they must be in this here oldest 
cliest.” 

The oldest chest was very old indeed, 
made of unpainted hard wood from which 
a covering of rawhide was all but rotted 
away. Mr. Simmons probed and fiddled 
in the rusty lock with a brass key that 
might have gone with Noah’s strong box, 
once or twice calling on heaven to wit- 
ness his displeasure that the guards did 
not turn; but then Pursuivant stepped to 
his side and lifted the lid with a creak of 
the hinges — the lock had never been fas- 
tened. Inside lay papers, yellow and 
dusty, tied into bundles with antedilu- 
vian-looking twine. Simmons examined 
one handful, then another. 

"Yep, these is the old records. Huh, 
the oldest bunch will be on tlie bottom, I 
expect.” He dug down, and brought up a 
sheaf. ‘"This is what you’ll want. Judge.” 

Pursuivant took the papers, unfastened 
the string, and carefully unfolded them to 
avoid breaking at the creases. 'They were 


2 .^ 

covered wdth writing in rusty ink. At the 
head of the first w'as printed in block let- 
ters, crude and archaic but forceful; 

RKCORDES OF 

Yfc TOWN COUNCIL OF CRISPINVILLE, 
FOUNDED Yis DAY Ye 14 JUNE, 

ANNO REGNII GEORGII II 
NONO 

The nintli year of the region of George 
II; Pursuivant computed that it would be 
1735 when Crispinville was founded as 
a formal community. The clerk let him 
carry the documents into the dining-room 
and spread them on the top of the table. 

rT\HE paper on which the records had 
been written was not of the best, and 
two centuries had made it brittle and tea- 
tan; but the first clerk of the township had 
written fluently and in a good bold hand, 
with all the underlinings and capitaliza- 
tions of his age. There was a list of 
names, with official titles opposite, some 
half-dozen members of that original coun- 
cil. Then, as the first item of history: 

Tills day we, the Chosen Council of the 
Town of Crispinville, did pay to certain In- 
dians the Price agreed upon for the Lands 
whereon our Company will live and plant 
and reap. ... v 

The price was itemized, and Pursuivant 
saw that, as usual in such matters, the In- 
dians had all the worst of it — gaudy cheap 
cloth, beads, rickety hatchets and knives, 
one or two muskets and a horn of powder, 
and certain bottles of raw New England 
rum. The screed went on, and suddenly 
Pursuivant was aware that, upon the very 
threshold of his researches, he had found 
the origin of the custom he was tracing: 

. . . The Indians engaging on their Part to 
respect our Rights and Boundaries and to 
keep the Peace, asking only that we observe 
their Manner of (as our Interpreter putteth) 
Greeting the Hare; that is, we shall not hunt 
Hares nor snare them, but upon meeting 


40 


WEIRD TALES 


them, salute and bespeak them as apertly as 
it were a Christian Alan, and not a silly 
Hare. 

To this last, certain of our Company did 
take Exception, and notably Capt. Scadlock, 
that such Custom was Childish and Fond; 
but the Chief Person of the Savages, him 
they call King Alosh, did bide firm, saying 
that the Rabbit was the Ototemon of their 
People and saaed; and further that if we 
pledged not our Word to continue their 
Custom, they would never sell the Land, be the' 
Price paid Ten Times Over. And finally tlie 
Rev. Air. Horton, our Minister of God, did 
earnestly pray us to give over, shewing tliat 
we had Precedent in that the First Mission- 
aries to Britain did respect and observe cer- 
tain Festivals and Useages of the old Heath- 
en; saying further that, right so as we took 
pity of these simple Indians tlieir Beliefs, 
right so would they incline to stand our 
Friends. And so it was agreed upon both 
Sides, we all signing our Names, saving only 
Capt. Scadlock, and the Matter placed of 
Record and made a Rule whereby to Govern 
and guide the Town henceforth. 

Pursuivant smiled in his mustache as he 
read, a smile of scholarly relish. He could 
see in his mind’s eye that meeting, the 
stark jack-booted colonists and the bro'wn, 
insistent savages. King Mosh — he had 
spoken out well for his people and faith, 
even against Captain Scadlock, who un- 
doubtedly was the chief of the colony’s 
armed forces; and the minister, Mr. Hor- 
ton, had shown rare tact and liberality — 
perhaps, good man, he had hoped for con- 
verts among those Indians on whose be- 
half he spoke. 

But tliat hope had been in vain. Pur- 
suivant saw as he read furtlier in the rec- 
ords. Less than a year later there had been 
a fight, and it had gone against the In- 
dians. The same clerk wrote: 

. . . and a Searching Party, following the 
tracks of Captain Scadlock upon the Second 
Day after his Vanishment, did trace him to 
that Hill which the Indians do call Gonto- 
lah (that is, the Hungry Hill). .. . 

"Hello!” muttered Pursuivant, half 
aloud. “That’s the hill back of Pitt’s 
place!” 


. . . and did find him, at the Mouth of the 
Cave near the Summit; and he had perished 
miserably, of many small Wounds, so thick 
upon him that no Inch of his Skin remained 
whole, nor did any Jot of his Blood remain 
unto him. And the Indians swore by their 
false gods that he came to his Death for fail- 
ing to greet the Hare, rather pursuing and 
slaying Hares upon tlie Hill; which we took 
as meaning to say, that they tliemselves had 
slain the Captain. Wherefore, falling to our 
Arms. . . . 

The remainder of the account was un- 
savory, and dealt with a one-sided con- 
flict. The dead Indians were scalped, it 
seems, and the prisoners taken all hanged. 
A few survived and escaped the carnage. 
That had finished the savages in the vicin- 
ity. Only the name of the hill, and the 
rabbit-greeting, remained to memorialize 
them. 

At this moment, the clerk came in and 
tapped his shoulder. 

"Judge,” he said, "here’s Morgan Pitts 
come to find you.” 

Pursuivant looked up, his big forefinger 
marking the place on the old sheet of 
paper. Pitts came in, his eyes wide with 
serious wonder. "Judge Pursuivant,” he 
said, "Mr. Ransome hasn’t come back.” 
"Hasn’t come back from where?” 

"He went hunting for a rabbit — ” 
Simmons made a choking sound of pro- 
test, and Pursuivant sprang to his feet, 
quick as a cat for all his bulk. "Hunting 
for a rabbit? He promised me — ” 

Pitts nodded glumly. "Yes, sir, I know 
he did. But when you left, Mr. Ransome, 
he took his gun and went out. Said he’d 
be back in fifteen minutes. But” — the 
man’s lips were quivering — "but he ain’t. 
I think. Judge, you better come.” 

The old records of Crispinville, tel lin g 
of superstition and pioneering and gr im 
battle, had cracked and crumbled in Pur- 
suivant’s clenching hands. He laid down 
the remains. 

"Have you brought your car, Mr. Pitts? 
All right, we’ll drive back together.” 


THE DREADFUL RABBITS 


41 


^T^HE house was still empty when they 
-®- got there. Pursuivant moved away 
through the back yard, across a meadow 
and among brush and small trees at the 
foot of the hillside. It was as bright and 
hot as a tropical seashore. The judge’s 
blue eyes had found and followed the trail 
of Ransome’s tennis shoes. Pitts followed 
just behind. 

“It’s bad stuff, hunting rabbits,” he 
chattered. “Folks around here don’t be- 
lieve in it — and when people don’t be- 
lieve — ” 

“It’s best to string along with sucli be- 
liefs, I agree,” finished Pursuivant for 
him. “Look, Mr. Pitts. He found a rab- 
bit trail here — fresh.” 

They could see- that Ransome had squat- 
ted down above the pattern of little paw- 
prints in the leaf -mold; his toes only made 
deep depressions, and beside them was the 
narrow oval where he had rested the gun- 
stock. Then he had risen and followed 
the game slantwise up the hill. Pursuivant 
and Pitts went up after him, through drag- 
ging belts and tangles of brush, some of 
it thorny. Pitts spoke again: 

"Look, Judge.” He pointed with a 
knobby old forefinger to a whole clutter 
of tracks. “More rabbits — Mr. Ransome’s 
hunting a mess of them.” 

The judge’s shaggy head shook. “I’m 
afraid not. See here — some of the paw- 
prints fall over Mr. Ransome’s shoe-marks. 
This bunch — flock — whatever you call a 
number of rabbits — it came along later. 
Mr. Ransome is hunting only that first one 
that made the lone trail.” 

“I see,” said Pitts softly. "I see; and 
these other rabbits — are — hunting Mr. 
Ransome!” 

TT WAS hotter than they had thought, 
as they pushed through one more 
clmnp of brambly growth, and came to 
where hunters and hunted had met. 

They had not the time nor the wish to 


read more than the essentials of the story 
written in large tracks and small upon the 
soft, spurned earth. Pursuivant began 
talking swiftly, pointing here and there. 

“Look! Ransome stopped and, prob- 
ably, aimed his gun. He was looking 
yonder, perhaps at that dark hollow place 
among those vine-grown saplings. The 
rabbit must have stopped there.” He 
crossed over and peered. “Yes — see! 
The tracks were turned toward Ransome. 
It stopped and turned on its heels, to look 
at liim.” 

“Like it was mocking him,” said Pitts, 
and swallowed hard. 

Pursuivant looked at the leaves behind 
the tracks. They were cut to pieces by 
shot — Ransome must have fired both bar- 
rels at tliat rabbit as it sat up to gaze at 
him. And then — 

Pitts was down ,on one knee. “They 
swarmed over him as he fired!” he cried 
shakily. "Look, Judge — they rushed him 
from behind, right here!” 

Pursuivant made a step and bent to pkk 
up something from a patdi of leafy weeds. 
"His gun!” he said, and snapped open the 
breech.' “Both barrels were fired — he 
must have thrown it at them. Then he 
was unarmed.” 

He returned to where Pitts kneeled. 
The flurry of tracks seemed to say that 
Ransome had fallen, as imdcr the impact 
of many missiles; what those missiles were 
could be deduced from the strength of cer- 
tain hind-leg marks, telling of how rabbits 
had sprung straight upward and at the 
face or chest. The gun still in his hand. 
Pursuivant stooped to make out what had 
happened to Ransome tlien. 

Here were hand-prints, deeply driven, 
as though weight had been supported upon 
the palms. Here was the scrape of a 
dragged knee, and another, with repeti- 
tions beyond — ^yes, Ransome had aept 
upon his hands and knees, stunned, 
wretched, driven. For at either flank of 


42 


WEIRD TALES 


his trail were the trails of his little adver- 
saries, herding and harrying him, toward 
the dark opening among the vines where 
he had seen and fired upon the quarry 
that was really a decoy. 

‘'Poor Mr. Ransome,” Pitts was saying. 
"He should have obeyed the law — you got 
to respect things like that, or — ” 

"Stay behind me,” commanded Pur- 
suivant, and bent, thrusting with the muz- 
zle of die shotgun into the space among 
the vines. 

Within was empty gloom, for here the 
hill rose abruptly under a masking of 
herbage, and in it was a cave. 

"Gontolah — the Hungry Hill,” remem- 
bered Pursuivant. Yes, as Pitts had said, 
this place looked like an open, starved 
mouth, a lune-shape hole with a flat rim 
of rock above and another below, like gap- 
ing lips. And something was wedged in 
that mouth-like cavern. 

He forced himself to touch it. His fin- 
gers closed on a slack, damp wrist. With 
a heave and a scrape, he dragged the body 
into view. 

Yes, it was Rapsome, or what had been 
Ransome. Pursuivant knew him by the 
contours of that pounded, lacerated head, 
by the leanness of the blood-boltcred body 
inside chopped-up rags. 

Pitts whimpered as the thing came into 
the light. 

"Poor Mr. Ransome,” he said again. 
"Now I know how — ohl” 

Pursuivant whirled like a top at that 
final gasp of horror. He saw, too, what 
Spencer had seen. 

The spaces among the bushes along 
their back trail were full of rabbits, all 
lean and gray with black and white blaz- 
ings on legs and ear-tips, and all a trifle 
larger than ordinary. Every eye in that 
horde was turned upon the two men, and 
the eyes of meat-eating animals. They 
were an army, moving concertedly and 
purposefully upon the judge and Pitts, 


who stood cut off with their backs to the 
cave. 

Pursuivant’s big fists tightened on Ran- 
some’s shotgun. He would not throw it, 
he told himself at once — clubbed, its 
metal-shod butt would smash these little 
assailants to rags. But Pitts was trying an- 
other weapon. 

With eyes and outstretched harids he 
addressed himself to the foremost of the 
rabbits, the one that moved cautiously but 
steadily ahead of the press, like an officer 
leading troops in an orderly advance. He 
spoke, audibly and with a tremble of fear: 

"H-howdy, Mister Rabbit!” ^ 

There was a momentary pause in the 
oncoming torrent of fur. A little eddy 
showed, then a parting in the ranks. They 
were making a way for Pitts to retreat 
through them, and he needed not a mo- 
ment to make up his mind. He fairly 
darted along that open lane, which closed 
behind him. The expanse of fuzzy backs 
and upturned green eyes resolidified, and 
above it Pitts looked back at Pursuivant. 

"Better say the words,” he advised 
huskily. "They’re closing in on you.” 

T hey converged slowly and smoothly, 
flowing like a puddle of grease — but 
grease scummed over with fur and green- 
black eyes, sprouting a meadow of ears. 
Pursuivant lifted the clubbed shotgun and 
set himself to strike. The leader-rabbit 
sprang suddenly at him. Pursuivant swung 
the gun, as a batter strikes at a ball. He 
could not miss — ^but the weapon swished 
thinly in the air, and the little sinewy body 
struck him at the base of the throat. A 
moment later more rabbits were springing 
at him — a dozen, a score, hundreds. His 
flailing with the gun did not find a single 
mark. He swayed under the bombard- 
ment, but kept his feet — he was stronger 
and bulkier than Ransome, he would take 
more battering to bring down — 

"Say the words. Judge!” Pitts’s voice 


THE DREADFUL RABBllS 


43 


pleaded with him from beyond. "They 
ain’t real rabbits — they’ll finish you!” 

Fighting, clawing at the rain of buffets, 
Pursuivant found his mind turning from 
the struggle to consideration of something 
else. What had the Indian, King Mosh, 
called the rabbit? Ototemon. Strange 
word. But with a familiar sound . . . sud- 
denly he saw blue expanse, fringed with 
green. The sky among the treestops 
looked into his face, for he had come 
down upon his back. The rabbits had 
felled him. They were swarming around 
and upon him, their feet striking like great 
raindrops, incessantly and with precision 
— a rhytlim that sapped his strength and 
his consciousness — again and again, on 
the same places. 

How could he escape these airy blows 
and kicks? There seemed one way to 
crawl along — but it would lead to the 
cave, where Ransome had been. And once 
caught there, they’d have him. They’d 
dance upon him forever and forever, until 
he died, torn and bled to death by im- 
countable strokes — it would be like the 
falling of water upon a Chinese victim of 
the old drop- death — 

“Say the words!” beseeched Pitts tear- 
fully, his voice faint as an echo. "Say 
the words — howdy — ” 

Ototemon — the term meant something 
sacred to the Indians. And tlie minister, 
Mr. Horton, had gone on record as say- 
ing tliat the honest faith of savages could 
be respected, must be respected — 

Somehow he got upon his feet, and 
lifted his hands as Pitts had done. 

"Howdy,” he mumbled thickly. “Howdy, 
Mister Rabbit.” 

And he stumbled and staggered away. 
Nothing prevented him. Pitts’s hand 
caught his arm, supporting him. He was 
safe, being led downhill. 

"Who’ll believe?” he was saying to him- 
self. "Who’ll beUeve? . . 

“Don’t worry. Judge,” Pitts replied. 


"We’re all right now. And this has 
happened before — all the folks say that 
the rabbits kill people near that cave. 
When some stranger drops out of sight, 
the folks go look for them and bury them 
— it ain’t thought strange any more — I’ll 
get a couple of men from town to help me 
bring back Mr. Ransome — ” 

Pursuivant was content to leave it at 
that. Later he would write and make an 
inquiry of Dr. Trowbridge, de Grandin’s 
friend and fellow-scholar of the occult, 

ROWBRIDGE’S letter came after the 
judge had returned to New York. 

My Dear Pursuivant: 

The meaning of the word ototemon should 
betray itself because of the familiarity of its 
corruption — totem. It's Algonquin and, as 
well as I can establish, means a local sacro- 
sanctity, generally embodied in some animal. 

A tribe or clan or community would claim 
tliat such animals were in reality the rein- 
carnated spirits of dead ancestors, and full of 
supernatural power for good or evil. 

I was sorry to hear about Ransome’s death. 
Why are you so mysterious.’ De Grandin 
joins me in inviting you out to Huntingdon, 
to tell us about it. We have a strange story 
or two of our own that might intrigue you. 

Yours, etc.. 

And Trowbridge’s almost indecipher- 
able signature wound it up. 

Pursuivant laid down the letter and rea- 
soned himself out of any sense of defeat. 
He had wanted to respect the custom from 
the first, had blamed Ransome for defy- 
ing it. Mr. Horton, the long-dead minis- 
ter of Crispin ville, had felt the same. "IVe 
had precedent in that the first Mission- 
aries to Britain did respect and observe 
certain festivals. . . ." It might be heathen 
to greet a rabbit, yet it was part of formal 
and sincere religion. And when you were 
in Crispinville, you should do what the 
Crispinvillagers id. 

Judge Pursuivant decided not to feel 
fouled by his experience. Only he would 
never look at a rabbit again, and keep his 
heart from thumping nervously. 












WmMmmt 


mm9m 




K4S^2||M 


■wMi 












iiiiii 






'Higher into the blue the flapping bird-man mounted, as the frantic Queen sought to release herselfi 



Million Years 
the Future 


By THOMAS P. KELLEY 


<4 


Thrilling interplanetary story of Tara the Glorious, Queen of the Stars; 
and the Black Raiders, destroyers of a thousand planets. 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


45 


The Story Thus Far 

J AN, prince of the Bardonians, mighty 
swordsman of the green planet. 
Earth, in the year 1,001,940, is cap- 
tured by the Black Raiders — invaders from 
the sky and masters of planets and space 
— and carried away in their massive space- 
ships to the Moon of Lost Souls, to toil in 
the great fields. Jan’s hatred against the 
Black Raiders is a bitter one, for, when 
he was but an infant, those same ebon war- 
riors had stolen his mother for the harems 
of the nobles on their distant world, 
Capara. 

In a space-ship, Jan escapes from the 
Moon of Lost Souls, together with Abel, 
the bird-man, and Vonna, princess of Pen- 
elope. They land on the weird Moon of 
Madness, and after many wild adventures 
the hardy Earthman finds the great god. 
Time himself, in a mighty, age-old tower. 
The hoary god tells of the tale of creation, 
and the treachery of his beauteous sister, 
Tara the Glorious, glamorous white queen 
of Capara. Jan is then given the strange 
crystal ring that will, if it but touches the 
golden Ball of Life that hangs above the 
throne of Tara, start the great mechanism 
that will, in ten days time, draw the tiny 
Moon of Madness across space and against 
Capara, with the force that will mean the 
destruction of both worlds. 

Believing Vonna dead, and seeing a 
chance to avenge himself against the 
destroyers of his planet, the Earthman re- 
solves to obliterate them. He fights for 
the fire-people (outsiders from a distant 
sun) against the Black Raiders in a colossal 
battle in space, is captured and taken to 
Capara, to the great golden city of Mana- 
tor, and then before the throne of the 
glittering Tara, who in turn sends him to 
the arena to fight in the Great Games, 
where his strength and sword-arm soon 
win the plaudits of the kill-crazed millions. 
Tlien, one night, escaping from his cell 


below the arena, he at last reaches Hie 
stupendous throneroom of Tara — lonely 
and unguarded, for it is well past midnight 
— and touches the ring of Time against the 
Ball of Life. 

His purpose accomplished, in fleeing 
from the throneroom, he becomes lost in 
a maze of winding corridors, till finally, 
coming upon a chamber of wondrous, bar- 
baric beauty, he halts as a silvery voice 
reaches him. Then the silken curtains of 
the bed are suddenly swept aside, and from 
them steps the glorious queen of the stars! 

The story continues: 


Part LV 

20. The Magic Mirror 

T^'OR what seemed an eternity I stood 
there, watching her slow advance as 
that wondrous beauty came toward me, her 
wavy black hair tumbling to her shoulders, 
the sheer sleeping-robe making no pretense 
of concealing her white body. 

Just before me she stopped; then her 
dark eyes widened in surprise. 

"You!” she exclaimed. "The Earth- 
man!” 

Then, as I nodded: "But how does it 
come you are here?” she asked. "How 
were you able to escape from your cell and 
come here? True, I meant to have you 
transferred to the castle tomorrow, but 
now you have made that transfer needless. 
How did you do it — and why?” she in- 
sisted. 

"It is always possible for a determined 
man to find what he wants,” I answered, 
watching her tensely. 

Tara the Glorious gave a slight start. 

“I have it! ” she exclaimed, her dark eyes 
lighting with a sudden joy. "You were 
looking for me! You were searching for 
me!” 

The Queen of the stars gave that silvery 


46 


WEIRD TALES 


laugh whicli seemed to come from a mil- 
lion miles away. 

“La, then it is no dream. I fall to 
sleep with the memory of you the last thing 
in my mind, then wake to find the mighty 
barbarian prince has escaped his prison, 
swum the Blue Lake, eluded my guards — 
killed several of them perhaps, then comes 
to my very bedroom to claim me for his 
captive!” 

Tara the Glorious sank to the great 
couch beside her. “Was there ^ever such 
a man?” she exclaimed. 

“But you need not remain standing, 
Prince Jan,” she went on, pointing to a 
chair. “Do sit down and tell me about 
your many adventures this night — how 
your great muscles enabled you to escape 
from the pits beneath the arena, swim the 
Blue Lake, as well as all the other exploits 
that must go with it.” 

As she ceased speaking a low growl sud- 
denly sounded from the far corner, and a 
large cat-like animal arose from where it 
had evidently been sleeping — a huge four- 
footed beast with a great head and a thick 
mane that I had noticed invariably 
sprawled at the feet of the beauteous one 
in the royal box at the Great Games. It 
had lain at the foot of her throne, too, the 
night I had been summoned to the throne- 
room — the royal pet, as I was to learn 
later. 

Tara wheeled. 

“Down, Ranga!” she ordered, and as 
the great beast slunk back into the corner: 
“My most faithful guard,” she smiled, 
turning to me. “Strangely enough it has 
descended from a species of animal that 
once roamed your own planet, the Earth 
— an animal the ancients of your world 
called a lion. But come, Prince Jan, rest 
yourself.” 

A thousand thoughts raced through my 
mind as I did her bidding. Seated on a 
V golden chair I watched that brilliant 
beauty. Did she really know what had 


brought me to her castle? Was she fully 
aware of what had happened in the 
throneroom, and was now but playing with 
me — leading me on? 

"I am a poor narrator of events,” I an- 
swered. “I prefer to perform, rather than 
talk them.” 

She nodded. 

“Ah, I know that well. Fourteen times 
I have seen your flashing steel drip crim- 
son in the arena, and I know. Yes; you 
fight with the strength of ten. Prince Jan, 
and I thrill as I watch you. 

“And tomorrow,” she went on, “I will 
watch you again. Tomorrow I will see you 
slay the Blue men as the thousands cheer, 
then watch as you come before me to claim 
the three wishes allotted to a survivor of 
the Great Games. I wonder what those 
three wishes will be?” 

“Only tomorrow can tell. Queen Tara,” 
I answered. “But surely I must go; I rob 
you of your sleep.” 

“No,” she put in hastily, one perfect 
hand half raised in protest. “Stay. I am 
the Queen, my word supreme, my actions 
infallible and beyond censure. No, Prince 
Jan; stay and talk to me this lonely hour, 
while the rest of the world sleeps.” 

And she nestled deeper into the silken 
cushions of the couch, smiling, her tum- 
bling black hair wavy and lustrous, the low 
V-shaped neck of her filmy sleeping-gar- 
ment revealing perfect white shoulders. 

“Suppose we talk of your world, your 
Majesty,” I ventured; “of your armies, the 
stars and planets they have conquered.” 

That dazzling smile deepened. 

“Always the warrior, thinking ever of 
battle and bloodshed. Perhaps I should 
put you in command of one of my fleets 
so that desire might be sated, for often my 
space-fleets have conquered as many as 
twenty worlds during their journeys far 
out in the trackless void. 

“That of course was many years ago, 
before my power had begun to assert it- 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


47 


self. Only rarely now do they come upon 
some star that has not already been con- 
quered, and mostly they are occupied in 
collecting the ransoms I demand and in 
subduing the endless uprising; though oc- 
casionally some ship, traveling on and on 
through the limitless wastes, comes upon a 
strange star, which is soon conquered and 
subdued, or, if it is without wealth or fine 
slaves, destroyed.” 

"And tributes and treasures continue to 
come to Capara?” I asked. 

^T^NDLESSLY,” she answered. "My 
-Li great treasure castles at the bottom 
of the North Sea — Capara’s mightiest ocean 
— groan with riches. My jewel vaults in 
the hallowed mountain of Zoranda threaten 
to burst that great mount asunder if they 
are increased. And yet each day the treas- 
ure-ships bring added riches and ransom, 
or else the news that some planet’s wealth 
is exhausted and it is unable to pay; in 
which case my royal seal sends one of the 
fleets with the Vapors of Vengeance to de- 
stroy that unfortimate world.” 

And her ivory fingers toyed with the 
large signet ring she wore. 

"Victories, always victories,” I mused. 
"But was no world ever able to beat off 
your w'arriors and destroy their ships?” I 
asked. 

"Yes, several of them. But I always 
sent other ships, then others, with their 
millions of fighting-men, till at last the 
worlds screamed for peace; which I some- 
times granted and sometimes did not, but 
in all cases exacted a frightful vengeance. 

"I recall once when we destroyed, the 
rat-men of Pambra — tall, white-skinned 
men of your own size, and human in every 
respect except for their hideous, rodent- 
like heads. Well, I had dispatched a fleet 
to conquer this Pambra — a star the ancients 
of your world called Venus — ^but it did not 
return. I then consulted my Magic Mir- 
ror, and was surprised to learn that the 


great mental powers of the rat-men had 
advanced them far in the field of hypno- 
tism — so far that they had been able to 
waft my warriors into a trance-like condi- 
tion, and were forcing them to toil in their 
fields as beasts of burden. 

"I was amused, and secretly applauded 
their wisdom and strategy, but, of course, 
I had to destroy them. Yet as their world 
was rich in gold and jewels, as well as 
their great fields of agriculture, I did not 
wish the Vapors of Vengeance turned upon 
it, as that powerful red gas tarnishes all 
gold and jewels it touches.” 

"And so?” I put in untliinkingly. 

"And so I knew there could be but one 
way,” she went on, " — mental surrender. I 
had my scientists concoct a blue, fog-like 
vapor, that would neither tarnish nor kill, 
but all who breathed of its sweet aroma 
were doomed to an instant and permanent 
insanity, as it robbed the brain cells of their 
power. 

"Thus I was able to conquer Pambra, 
for, staying aloft and encircling that planet, 
the fleet released the blue vapors from the 
tail of each ship. Then, after allowing time 
for the gasses to disperse, they landed. A 
few of the rat-men — now hopeless idiots — 
were returned to Capara for the experi- 
mental tables of my scientists; the rest de- 
stroyed. I then had a million conquered 
subjects — green people from a far-away 
star — migrated to Pambra in space-ships, to 
till its great fields and extract its great 
wealth; and today that world numbers 
some two billion submissive and dutiful 
subjects. 

"But come, we will talk no more of me 
or my world — let us hear of yours; that 
bright green star you call the Earth.” 

"I am afraid there is little I can tell 
that you do not already know,” I admitted. 
"For hundreds and hundreds of miles the 
dreary plains of my world stretch away to 
show only the occasional ruined cities of 
the ancients; then dreary moss-covered 


4S 


'WEIRD TALES 


wastes that were once the bottoms of 
mighty oceans, for today there are no 
great bodies of water — only the occasional 
small lake and stream.” 

"Yes, I know,” she answered nodding. 
"And yet it was once a great world of 
thundering cities and hurrying billions.” 

"But how could you know that.^” I 
asked. 

The royal beauty gave a little gurgle of 
pleasure, enjoying my visible surprise. 

"I surprise you, Prince Jan? Ah, but I 
know the history of the green star as well 
as I know this room — as well as I do the 
history of all the worlds my fleets have con- 
quered. 

"Come, I will show you.” 

Tara the Glorious rose to her tall, lovely 
height, with the grace of a falling leaf. 
To the corner of the room near the bal- 
cony she led me. Here a strange, screen- 
like mirror, some four feet square, com- 
posed of some sparkling material that shim- 
mered and glittered, was supported by two 
side posts. We paused before it. 

"Behold,” said Tara, and there was a 
sudden solemnity in her voice. "One of 
my greatest treasures, composed of the star 
dust of distant worlds — the Magic Mir- 
ror!” 

I looked at it with interest, for I real- 
ized by her tone that it was something of 
importance. "But what purpose does it 
serve?” I asked. 

"It is a mirror that reflects thought,” she 
answered, "as well as to recall from the 
centuries, even from the beginning of time, 
any scene or occurrence that might have 
happened on the various worlds. See, I 
stand before it thus and think of your 
world, desiring to witness the most im- 
portant events that have occurred on it 
since it began. Watch carefully!” 

F or a moment there was nothing, and 
then that glittering screen suddenly 
came to life, presenting a series of pictures 


so startlingly realistic one felt they might 
talk to the characters in them. First I saw 
a great bubbling ball that filled nearly all 
the screen. 

"Your world at its beginning,” whis- 
pered the wondrous beauty beside me. 

Then slowly that great globe ceased 
bubbling and grew hard. Of course, as 
the Queen explained, what happened on 
the screen in minutes had in reality taken 
centuries. Gradually there appeared great 
seas; then eons later (though on the screen 
it was but minutes) came land, vegetation, 
then life — weird beasts of mammoth size 
which crashed through leafy jungles and 
roamed great plains, then shaggy men with 
clothes of skin and knotted bludgeons, who 
hunted or were hunted by them, to give 
way in time to men of more human ap- 
pearance. 

Then came small dwellings, then larger 
ones, then great crowds of humans labor- 
ing on huge stone structures. 

"The Egyptians,” came the soft voice of 
Tara. "An ancient race of your world 
building the pyramids.” 

Then came pictures of wars — wars by 
land and wars by sea. We saw great armies 
march to battle. We saw thousands tram- 
pled down and overridden by great chari- 
ots and mailed horsemen, w'hile the air 
was black with shooting arro’^s. We saw 
huge ships at sea meet and crash head on, 
then great flames rise and envelop them, 
while their struggling crews were swept 
to the waves, blood-smeared and scream- 
ing. 

Then slowly civilization rose, and the 
screen showed great cities that grew larger 
and larger with the passing ages. Strange 
quadrupeds had appeared too; they seemed 
the universal mounts of those ancient 
days, as the fleet kangs had been to my 
own, for they carried the warriors to battle 
and drew their heavy carts and wagons. 

Then suddenly they disappeared, to be 
replaced by countless tiny black cars that 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


'49 


hurried along at an amazing speed without 
any visible means of movement, while the 
heavens were black with little flying-ships, 
for by now the world had grown to a great 
populace, and its cities were huge and 
many. 

"Observe closely,” whispered Tara. "It 
is your world at the height of its power.” 

And indeed it was a wonderful world, 
and I thrilled to think that my planet had 
once known such greatness; a great world 
of mighty cities and broad highways that 
stretched on and on, while in its vast seas 
huge ships plowed steadily through the 
waves to distant shores with cargoes and 
their thousands of passengers, and all were 
prosperous and happy. 

And then came destruction — another 
war, but this time one more terrible than 
all the others, a hideous struggle that 
seemed to be a war of the races, for we 
could see the yellow hordes struggling 
against the others, and smoke and flame 
was everywhere, and great cities crumbled 
and fell; till finally the world was covered 
with charred, smoking ruins, and most of 
its , inhabitants lay dead. 

Century followed century, but never 
again did the world know its former splen- 
dor; for all the arts seemed lost, and its 
people content to remain idle and dwell 
in the charred ruins of their ancestors. 
Then came invasions from the skies, then 
other invasions, then others — each more 
terrible than the last — ^while the world 
slowly dwindled in numbers and intellect, 
and its vast seas gradually dried up; till 
at last there remained but the few shal- 
low lakes and streams, the great moss-cov- 
ered wastes, dreary landscapes and the 
primitive tribes I had known. 

And then came those final scenes that 
showed the ships of the Black Raiders en- 
circling the Earth as they released the 
Vapors of Vengeance; and the few remain- 
ing tribes clutched at tlieir throats, then 
died, and every animal staggered and fell. 


and the birds dropped lifeless to the 
groimd, and only bleaching bones re- 
mained when the red gases at last lifted, to 
show the dismal and final ending of the 
green star. 

And then the scene grew hazy and died 
away, and Tara turned, smiling, to show 
that all was over. 

I turned to the beauteous one beside me. 
"My world,” I said, "and every living 
thing upon it died. They are all dead.” 

She nodded, a half-smile in her dark 
eyes. "They had no wealth, nothing I 
wished, and they were unable to defend' 
themselves. They met the fate that must 
ever overtake the weak — destruction.” 

"Was it necessary to kill them because 
they had no wealth?” I went on, my voice 
rising with my mounting anger. 

Those magnificent white shoulders 
shrugged slightly. "Ah, Prince Jan, need 
we discuss such matters?” she asked. 

"Suppose one mightier than yourself — ” 

"There is none mightier than Tara. 
There can be none mightier. And even 
if there were, the Great Secret of the 
Bells would have her. No; with the warm 
rays of the Ball of Life upon her, Tara 
will go on and on throughout eternity — 
always the Beautiful, always the Glorious. 

"But come, I will show you the history 
of other worlds; of the red star your ances- 
tors knew as Mars, and the ringed planet 
that is no rriore, as well as many others 
whose pasts are both interesting and in- 
structive.” 

And seated before the Magic Mirror 
with the Queen of the Stars beside me, I 
watched for hours while the histories of 
the different worlds were shown on that 
glittering screen. And all the while I sat 
there the soft, musical voice of Tara in- 
terpreted the various scenes for me. 

A GOLDEN dawn was stealing across 
the sky when we finally rose. 

"Come,” said the royal beauty, and tak- 


50 


WEIRD TALES 


ing my hand she led me out on the lofty 
balcony, her delicate sleeping-robe flutter- 
ing in that early breeze. 

Out here the world was awakening to a 
new day. 

Far below us the blue waters shim- 
mered and sparkled, while across the lake 
the first rays of tlie rising sun were falling 
on the great golden city with a dazzling 
brilliance that was blinding. 

And standing beside me on the lofty 
balcony was Tara the Glorious, breath-tak- 
ingly beautiful in that early light. For 
long the wondrous Queen of the Stars 
looked at her sparkling capital, with its 
mighty elevated thoroughfares that 
stretched on and on for miles, and its tow- 
ering peaks and spires that seemed to brush 
the very sky; then at last she turned to me. 

"Is it not wonderful, my great golden 
city?” she asked softly. 

“It surpasses description,” I admitted 
truthfully. 

"You like it?” she asked, and as I 
nodded: “Then it is good,” she went on. 
"It is very good, for I intend to have you 
remain here with me always.” 

"Have me remain here always!” I 
echoed, showing my surprise. “But why 
should you? How could my future be of 
any possible interest to your Majesty?” 

The dark eyes of Tara went to mine. 
"Oh Jan, Jan!” she cried. “How can you 
be so blind? Has not my every word, my 
every look been an open invitation to you? 
Why do you think I allowed you to go 
unpunished when you were brought before 
my throne? Why have I always had two 
hidden archers waiting with ready arrows 
when you fought in the arena — ready to 
drive their shafts into the heart of your 
foe should he prove more than a match 
for you? Why have I allowed you to stay 
in this room where no man has ever trod, 
and talked to you through the long hour.' 
— and was happy? Why,. Jan, why?” 

She came closer, her breast rising and 


falling, her dark eyes wide, her magnifi- 
cent body trembling. 

"Because at last there has come to me 
one who knows not fear. Because at last 
there has come to me one to whom I would 
give my throne, my life, and myself. Be- 
cause at last, after countless centuries of 
waiting, love wild and burning has come 
to Tara the Glorious!” 

The next instant her white arms were 
drawing my face toward hers. 

"Kiss me, Jan! Kiss and love me!” she 
panted, and those blood-red lips rose up 
to min^. 

21. 1 Find Vonna 

Y es, I, Jan, Prince of the green planet, 
Earth, in the year 1,001,940, stood on 
that lofty balcony of the golden palace of 
Tara, which rose up in the center of the 
Blue Lake in the heart of the mighty gol- 
den city of Manator, on that distant world, 
Capara; while with her shapely white arms 
around my neck the glorious Queen of the 
Stars pleaded for my love. 

But those red lips never found mine, 
nor had I time to make any response, for 
at that same instant, from across the lake, 
arose the harsh blare of a thousand trum- 
pets that announced a new dawn and the 
last day of the Great Games; while from 
the far end of the room the huge doors 
were suddenly flung open as a score of 
slave-girls — the hand-maids of the Queen 
— entered the great suite to awaken, batlie 
and array their royal mistress. 

Tara had stiffened as the blare of the 
trumpets reached us, though her arms still 
remained around my neck. Then as her 
hand-maids entered she turned to them, 
then back to me — .the slave-girls staring at 
me in wide-eyed amazement. 

"A new day, Jan — it has iijterrupted 
us,” she whispered. "But tliere will be 
others’, many others, and nothing will in- 
terrupt us — nor will any of the wishes you 


'A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


n 


may publicly ask me this day be denied,” 
and her white hands slid down my arms to 
gently squeeze my wrists. 

"My King to be!” she murmured; then 
turning to her slave-girls she issued rapid 
orders. 

A few minutes later, at the orders of the 
Queen, I had been quartered in the great 
left wing of the palace — a huge suite of 
breath-taking magnificence that overlooked 
the Blue Lake. Here I bathed in a scented 
pool, ate of the rarest foods and donned 
the harness that was a solid mass of glit- 
tering diamonds which Tara had sent to 
me. 

Then, at my own request, I was returned 
to my cell beneath the arena to await my 
coming battle with the Blue man. At the 
command of Tara three Black officers had 
accompanied me; but I could not help 
wondering how soon all this would change 
when the Moon of Madness began its wild 
plunge toward Capara. Tara, I knew, would 
instantly guess who had caused the catas- 
trophe, and I had heard enough of the 
terrible tortures inflicted on those who dis- 
pleased the Queen to know what a death 
I might expect. 

Of course the love declaration of the 
Queen of the Stars had come as my great- 
est surprise, but it was a passion I could 
never reciprocate. I knew now that my 
heart lay in that far-off buried village on 
the weird Moon of Madness, where the 
body of the lovely golden girl lay cold in 
death. 

An hour passed. From without came 
the din of the thousands pouring into the 
arena. I had kept the manner of my es- 
cape from the cell on the previous night a 
mystery, and of course my jailer had wisely 
maintained silence. Yet it was a keen source 
of mystery to the Black officers, beside me, 
and at last I heard one say: 

"The escape was amazing, the first as 
long as I can remember. And perhaps we 
never will know just how it was done. 


as the Earthman will not tell. Yes; it is a 
mystery as great as the secret of the Temple 
of the Bells,” he turned, smilingly to me. 

I had been paying little attention to the 
chattering trio, but at the last words of the 
Black I picked up my ears. "The secret 
of the Temple of the Bells.” Only last 
night I had heard Tara use them. I had 
not delved into their meaning, though her 
tone, as well as that of the Black, told that 
it must be something momentous. Casually 
I turned to the officer beside me. 

"This Secret of the Bells,” I asked him. 
"What does it mean? I have heard it men- 
tioned several times since coming to Ca- 
para.” 

"It would be strange if you did not,” 
he answered with a laugh as the Others 
nodded, "as it is Capara’s greatest and 
most honorable defense. 

"Ages ago,” he explained, "many ages 
ago indeed, for our world was then young 
and war and conquest were unknown, our 
beauteous Queen sought only to protect her 
planet, and so ordered the great labor that 
took a million men a century as they dug 
the great shaft that penetrated down and 
down into the very heart of our world. And 
there, a thousand miles below the surface, 
was constructed a huge chamber that might 
well hold a small city. 

“And in that chamber, at the Queen’s 
commands, were put thousands upon thou- 
sands of tons of explosives of undreamed- 
of power, so constructed that they would 
last throughout eternity, and could be in- 
stantly discharged by the breaking of the 
delicate glass vial that sealed the huge 
doors of the chamber. A thin glass vial 
so delicate that it could be snapped asunder 
by a loud vibration and ” 

“And that will ever save Capara from 
the heel of a conqueror,” put in another, 
"for hung along that mighty thousand-mile 
shaft, at regular intervals, are ten great 
bells, each weighing many tons. When 
the first bell on the surface is rung, its 


52 


WEIRD TALES 


booming echo will vibrate along the silent 
corridor to the next bell, a hundred miles 
below, where the sound will snap tlie tiny 
glass vial above the second. This will re- 
lease the force that will ring the second 
bell, whose sound in turn will continue 
along to the third. 

"And so on and on till tlie ten bells 
have been rung, and their vibrations have 
reached the delicate vial that seals those 
distant doors, to break it with their loud 
din and cause the hideous explosion that 
will blast Capara to a hundred trillion 
atoms!” 

“But better that than have our beloved 
planet fall before a conqueror,” put in the 
first. "Though now we are so powerful 
there is no need to fear anything.” 

“But the Great Secret?” I asked. 

“Where the great shaft begins,” he an- 
swered. “Where hangs the first of the 
great bells. A tiny temple is said to be 
built above it — the Temple of the Bells — • 
but as to its exact location only Tara knows, 
the glorious Queen and the four warriors 
who each year stand guard there.” 

"Gould they not tell?” 

"They are never given the chance, even 
if they would. Once each year the Queen 
sends four of her hardiest warriors to 
guard the temple, while those who served 
the previom year are publicly executed so 
that no loose tongue may tell the Great 
Secret Nor does that stop the volunteers. 
To serve the Queen and guard the bells 
for one year, then meet public execution, 
is considered one of the greatest of all 
honors, and one for which all warriors 
strive.’* 

"Suppose one did manage to ring the 
first bell?” I asked after a pause. “How 
long before the vibrations would ring down 
through the great shaft to the center of 
your world and explode Capara?” 

"The matter of an hour,” answered my 
informer. ‘'The bells are a hundred miles 
apart, but the shaft is so constructed that 


it takes some six minutes for vibration to 
reach from bell to bell, making one hour 
in all. But that of course will never hap- 
pen, for now w’e are the conquerors of ten 
thousand planets and ” 

TT WAS the sudden entrance of two 
Black officials that stopped him, offi- 
cials whose duty it was to escort me to the 
arena. I rose and followed them. "By 
royal command you are to fight directly 
before the throne of her Majesty,” said 
one as we hurried along. 

At the huge barred door leading to the 
arena we halted while that stout barrier was 
pushed aside. Here I was given a jeweled 
longsword; then, with the good wishes of 
the others in my ears, I stepped out onto 
the arena sands and into the dazzling sun- 
light, where half a million kill-crazed 
Blacks roared and shouted for blood. 

Directly before me was the royal box 
of Tara, and beneath the waving fans of 
her slaves sat that wondrous beauty who 
ruled the stars. Her dark eyes were smil- 
ing upon me, one ivory hand half raised in 
greeting. At her feet sprawled the huge 
black lion that was her constant guard. 

In the box to the left the grim Metak 
glared at me. Beside him sat the lovely 
Earthwoman who was his wife, while from 
the box to the right of the Queen, the tiny 
Vaxarus half rose from his chair, ges- 
ticulating with his eyes toward the seat 
of Tara. Vaguely I remembered his words 
of last night that said the captive princess 
he wished for his own would be there in 
golden fetters. 

And then, unthinkingly, I raised my eyes 
to find her, raised my eyes to tlie slender 
figure that stood beside the Queen — to be- 
hold Vonna! ' 

Yes; there, scarcely ten feet above me 
and leaning forward, her blue eyes wide 
and staring into mine, her scanty jewel- 
encrusted trappings glittering in the sun- 
light, her wrists imprisoned by the huge 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


53 


fetters that enicrcled them, was the lovely 
golden-haired girl I could have swOfn lay 
cold in death in the tiny buried world be- 
neath the weird Moon of Madness at that 
very minute. 

For an instant I stared in open-mouthed 
surprise, my mind numb with amazement. 
It was the quick look of warning from 
the blue eyes of Vonna that brought it back 
to rationality. Plainly there was something 
she feared I might or might not do; though 
whether it was to recognize her publicly 
before the others or not I could not tell. 
But the approach of the .warrior who was 
my opponent prevented further specula- 
tion, and the next moment, amid the wild 
roars of the vast assembly, our blades 
crossed. 

B ut whether the Blue man of Rana was 
a good swordsman or not I shall never 
know, for with the eyes of Vonna upon me 
I was no longer a man, but a veritable 
superman that nothing could withstand, 
and a moment later my sword had found 
his heart. 

And then I wheeled again to the royal 
box, still unable to believe my eyes, to be- 
hold Vonna staring wildly at me, some 
frantic appeal in her eyes, while the glori- 
ous Tara arose and stepped forward till she 
was just above me. A short blare of trum- 
pets brought an im-mediate silence; then the 
musical voice of the Queen of the Stars 
came to me. 

“You, mighty warrmr from a far-off 
world, have fought your way through the 
dangers of the Great Games. For ten days 
have we watched and thrilled at the 
strength of your sword-arm. And now I, 
Tara, Queen of the Stars, publicly proclaim 
you as the winner of the Great Games, and 
according to custom will grant you any 
three wishes you may desire. Ask, then, 
what you would of me.” 

And the beauteous one paused, smiling, 
to await my answet- 


But all this must be unreal, I reasoned 
— some wild hallucination, perhaps. With 
my own eyes I had seen the mutilated body 
of the golden girl cold in death, and yet 
there she now stood beside the Queen, 
scarcely ten feet above me — the result of 
some dark act of necromancy, perhaps; but 
whatever it was, the princess of Penelope 
was before me, alive. 

And I was to be allotted three wishes. 
Three wishes that I knew were a mockery, 
for but a few short days from now Capara 
was destined for that great catastrophe, and 
all upon it would know a terrible end. Of 
course at the time I touched the Ball of Life 
with the ring of Time I had not dreamed 
that Vonna still lived, and was a captive 
of the Queen. Had I known it, that very 
fact would have stayed my hand, for it 
doomed both captive and captor alike. But 
too late for that now. 

And before me the beauteous Tara was 
awaiting my answer. 

"Three wishes you have promised me. 
Queen Tara,” I answered. “Three wishes 
that are the privilege of a survivor of the 
Great Games. Then I ask for the first one 
that mercy be granted,” and I wheeled and 
gestured with my sword, “and that yon 
captive maids be allowed their freedom!” 
I cried. 

A roar of protest arose from the sur- 
rounding thousands at my shouted words. 

And just above me stood Tara the Glori- 
ous, a quizzical, half-frowning smile on 
those wonderful features. For a long mo- 
ment she stood thus in silent surprise, and 
then, suddenly, as though conscious for the 
first time of the wild turmoil around her, 
wheeled and flashed a glare at her subjects 
as she raised an ivory hand. Five hundred 
thousand voices stopped as though sud- 
denly turned to stone — an instantaneous 
silence that told of their awe, and the ab- 
solute rule of the' fearless beauty they 
served. 

Then slowly, as though choosing her 


54 


WEIRD TALES 


words witli great care, there came her 
musical answer. 

"Truly it is a strange request you ask 
of me, oh Prince. It robs us of a riotous 
spectacle, and I hardly expected you would 
demand it. Yet as Tara has given you her 
promise, that promise shall be kept, and 
you captive girls will be freed, wid allowed 
to return, unmolested, to the planet from 
which they were taken. 

“But come,” and that beauteous face 
lighted, "you have still two more wishes. 
What would you ask of me for the sec- 
ond.’" 

"Something for v/hich I have long 
waited, oh C^eeri,” I answered, "and if 
my first wish robbed your subjects of a 
spectacle, the second should fully recom- 
pense for it, for I ask that I be allowed 
to meet, here and now in combat, the 
Commander of your fleets, and tlie man 
responsible for the death of my planet — 
Metak the Cruel, champion s/wordsman of 
Capara!” 

Again a wild roar arose from the crowd, 
but this time it was one of joy, for it pitted 
their greatest swordsman against this rash 
fool who had challenged him. Hesitantly 
Tara gave her decision, though to do him 
justice, there was nothing backward or un- 
willing about Metak. With an agile leap he 
sprang completely over the railing, landing 
lightly in the arena, and advanced toward 
me drawing his longsword, with the loud 
cheers of his countrymen accompanying 
him. 

Then, as was the custom when a battle 
between two distinguished swordsmen took 
place, a strong-voiced page stepped for- 
ward to acclaim us. 

^TTY THE royal sanction of Tara our 

^ champion meets this white man who 
has mowed down all before him. Once 
again Capara’s greatest warrior will waive 
his rank to meet a captive in combat, as 
he has so many times, and always success- 


fully, done in the past. And now,” he 
wheeled to us, "by royal command I or- 
der the beginning of the duel of these two 
famed gladiators. 

“Metak, our Commander!” And the 
thousands howled. 

“And the others!” he cried. "Jan, Prince 
of the Bardonians, of the planet Eartli!” 

Above and just behind the ready Metak 
was the box in which sat his wife, the 
Earthwoman I have already mentioned. 
Often I had noticed her in my coming to 
and frorn the arena, and somehow I felt a 
strange attraction toward her — her mature, 
kind and lovely face, always sad and wist- 
ful — and could well imagine it was against 
her will tliat she sat there day after day. 
That she had guessed I was of her own 
world I could w’dl believe, but never till 
now had my full identity been made 
known. She sat there calmly, expecting no 
doubt that another victim would soon be 
added to the long list of Metak. 

Now it so happened that my gaze was 
toward her as the page cried my name. 
And then a strange thing occurred, for as 
she heard it she sprang to her feet scream- 
ing, an agonized horror on her face, to fall 
limply forward in a swoon. 

And then the sword of my foe clashed 
against mine, and in an instant I knew why 
Metak was the champion of Capara. 

Never in all my life have I known such 
swordsmanship. In a moment he had me 
entirely on the defense; then rushing me 
under a shower of cuts and thrusts almost 
too quick for the eye to follow, I was 
forced to give ground and back away, w'hile 
the surrounding Blades screamed for their 
champion and shouted for my death. 

But despite that rain of steel upon me 
I was as yet untouched and far from 
beaten, although I had parried some of 
those wicked thrusts by only the scantiest 
of margins. But I fought coolly and 
swiftly; then suddenly stopping my retreat 
I lunged ahead with the swift thrust that 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 




nearly got him, and halted his advance. 
This I followed up with another and an- 
other, and there we stood, each refusing to 
give an inch, fighting frantically as our 
blades clashed and slashed in that wild 
outburst of sword-play, the equal of which 
had never been witnessed upon that or any 
other planet. 

I was fighting to avenge my world; Me- 
tak for his life and honor; and five min- 
utes passed with nought to choose between 
our flying blades. But it must have come 
to the Black champion that he courted dis- 
aster in a long drawn-out battle, for I was 
not only much younger, but had a 
strength and endurance far superior even to 
his. 

And knowing this he suddenly began 
again the rushing tactics that he had so 
nearly got me at the beginning of the fray. 

But this time I was waiting and ready, 
and swaying slightly back as though a re- 
treat was my intention, I lunged forward 
in the same movement with the lightning- 
like thrust that shot through his wonderful 
guard like an arrow, and drove my sword 
to the hilt in his breast. 

Metak of Capara sank lifeless to the 
sands. 

In the death-like hush that followed I 
turned again to the royal box as five hun- 
dred thousand pairs of eyes watched me; 
for the defeat of the hitherto unbeaten 
and supposedly invincible Metak had 
brought both silence and respect. Then 
looking straight into the dark eyes of the 
glorious Tara I spoke softly and slowly, 
and my gaze never left hers. 

"And my third wish, oh Queen, I now 
ask of you — a wish that will cause neither 
bloodshed nor sorrow, and one that can 
easily be granted by your Majesty, for I 
ask for my freedom and the' hand of ” 

"Yes, yes. Prince; speak quickly; the 
wish shall be granted,” and Tara leaned 
forward, eager, expectant. 

"I ask for the hand of the captive be- 


side you — ^Vonna, the Golden, Princess of 
Penelope!” 


22. Dungeons of Despair 


A HUNDRED million deaths could 
not atone for what you have done! 
The destruction of ten thousand worlds is 
but a trifle in comparison! You have dared 
to spurn the love and hand of Tara for 
another, and for countless centuries and 
throughout eternity must your name and 
memory be cursed!” 

So cried the beauteous Tara as her black 
eyes blazed with fury. 

When I had made my request on the 
hot arena sands, the Queen of the Stars 
had gasped, gone white, then reeled as 
though struck by an unseen hand. Then 
she commanded her guards to seize me 
and I was beaten down beneath a hundred 
swords, and, fighting madly, bound hand 
and foot — shearing the screams of Vonna 
begging for my life as I was picked up, 
only half conscious, I was carried to the 
royal flyer which in turn conveyed me to / 
the island castle of Tara. There I was 
carried to the great throne room, thrown 
on the jeweled floor before that mighty 
seat, then left alone. 

For a long hour I lay there, wondering 
what I might expect and what had been 
done with Vonna. Then suddenly the hid- 
den door I had discovered the previous 
night was rolled aside, and from it stepped 
that long-limbed beauty who was Tara the 
Glorious, to stride majestically toward me, 
her magnificent body like a shapely pearl, 
scantily hid by that tight-clinging gold-like 
tissue that fell from her waist to her instep, 
the diamond breast-plates blazing a bar- 
baric splendor. 

Standing above me she watched in 
silence, those black eyes flash- 


BOOK STORP 

A mighty frame and pos^^ul is Pnnret 


ing a wild fury 
ighty fr 

Jan,” she spok^^-last.A'a.ixJdv that roll; 




WEIRD TALES 


with rippling muscles and arms swollen 
with sinew. And yet how soon my tor- 
turers can change all that, and reduce to a 
whimpering, bloody mass the fearless Bar- 
donian swordsman.” 

I made no reply, had not even deigned 
to look upon her after that first glance of 
recognition. This seemed to infuriate more 
than a direct reply. 

"Speak!” she cried, "Find your tongue, 
or by the stars I will have my torturers 
find it with the plucking-tongs! Quickly! 
Who is she.’ Who is that pale creature 
you prefer to Tara?” 

"She is tlie woman I love,” I answered 
from where I lay, my eyes meeting hers. 
"She is the woman I will always love, and 
nothing that you or anyone else can do 
will ever change it.” 

Tara saeamed a wild, "Stop! Stop, or 
I will have you torn to shreds! Stop or 
else ” 

Then with a little sobbing cry, half 
anger, half sorrow, the Queen of the Stars 
sank to her knees beside me. 

"No, no, Jan, you cannpt,” she moaned 
as her white arms raised my head, and 
those wondrous eyes, wet with tears, stared 
into mine. "You must love no other but 
me. For countless ages I have awaited 
your coming, and the hour when I might 
surrender myself to you. Ten thousand 
w'orlds I endow you with, my lover. The 
golden city of Manator is yours for the 
asking. Tara herself will fall to her knees 
and obey you without question. But love 
me, Jan. Only love and want me — me 
alone!” she cried. 

And then with a wild outburst of pas- 
sion she strained me fiercely to her, and 
her hot lips rained a hundred kisses on 
my brow, my eyes, my cheeks and mouth. 

"Love me Jan! Love me! ” 

With a shudder of disgust I wrenched 
my bound form from her. This was no 
longer the cold, brilliant Queen of tlie 
Stars, but a panting, love-crazed creature. 


wild-eyed and flushed, who seemed oblivi- 
ous to all else but her desires. The sud- 
den effort tore me from her grasp, and 
raised me to a sitting position. 

"Jan of the Bardonians does not desire 
you,” I answered. 

There came a gasp from Tara, followed 
by a long moment’s silence as she stared at 
me in wide-eye^ amazement. It waa as 
though astonishment had temporarily para- 
lyzed her. Then a look of shame crept 
over those exquisite features, a red flush 
mounted her cheeks. Slowly it must have 
come to her tlrat she. Queen of the Stars 
and ruler of destiny, had been scorned by 
a captive! 

Then with a scream, half maniacal, half 
bestial, she sprang to her feet, her facial 
muscles working horribly, her hands 
clenched into white fists which she raised 
above her head. 

"Die!” she screeched. "Die, cursed 
spawn of a million hells, and the pale one 
perishes with you! Die while I shriek 
with laughter as I watch you both writhe 
in your death agonies!” 

Leaping toward the huge gong beside 
her, Tara the Glorious sent the golden 
hammer that hung above it crashing into 
its glittering side with a roar that threw 
open the great throneroom doors as a 
hundred ready guards came tearing to her 
aid. 

"To the pits with this carrion!” she 
screamed as the furious guardsmen 
crowded around me. "To the pits! Take 
him to die deepest cell of the deepest 
dungeon, that he may not pollute my per- 
son with his gaze! Bind him with a score 
of chains and ” 

"Queen Tara! Queen Tara! Oh, most 
Beauteous One — hear me!” 

It was the loud shouting of a powerful 
voice that sounded even above the cries 
of the Queen. The next moment there 
came the sound of running footsteps. Then 
I was lifted to my feet by guards of Tara, 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


to behold the tall and dignified old Black 
who came running, and stopped sharply 
before her, panting. 

"What means this intrusion, Kovan?” 
screamed Tara, wheeling toward him. 
"Has the royal astronomer gone mad, that 
he would dare come before me like this, 
unheralded.^ By your ancestors there had 
better be a good cause for such an act if 
you would keep your eyes!’’ 

rpHE royal astronomer, who had been 

struggling for breath, broke out again; 

"Oh glorious Queen, but hear me!’’ he 
cried. "But listen to the loyal Kovan as 
he tells that most terrible news. For the 
age-old prophecy is at hand at last, your 
Majesty, and the tiny Moon of Madness 
has begun a wild plunge toward Capara.” 

"What!” 

"Yes, yes, oh Beauteous One!” sobbed 
the royal astronomer. "Yes, yes, it is 
true! Through the great glass I have just 
now seen it! The Moon of Madness is 
being drawn toward Capara as though by 
supernatural means, and within ten days 
will crash upon and destroy our world!” 

Tara the Glorious went white. 

I doubt during that moment if any of 
the assembly so much as breathed. Of 
course the Queen must have instantly real- 
ized who had brought all this about, but 
she remained in a long and terrible silence, 
her white body tensed like some magnifi- 
cent statue, and when last she did speak, 
her voice was so low as to be almost in- 
audible. 

"Remove the prisoner to the dungeons. 
I will deal w'ith him later.” 

Held in the hands of four stalwart 
Blacks, I was hustled down a seemingly 
endless corridor that finally terminated at 
the entrance of a subterranean passage. 
Here waited another Black with a bunch 
of keys protruding from his belt. 

As we drew nearer the tall man smiled, 
and grabbing a lighted torch from its niche 


n 

and motioning us to follow, led the way 
down a vast series of time-worn steps. 
We made our slow way ever farther into 
the earth. A cold dampness arose to tell 
us of our great distance below the surface. 

At last we halted before a sturdy wooden 
door, held by massive iron bars upon the 
side of our approach. Stopping only to 
unlock and push it aside, we entered the 
long, low-ceilinged vault that was destined 
to be my prison. 

It was a foul-smelling pit whose jagged 
ceiling was damp with moisture, and whose 
floor was a hard, black clay. Huge rings 
were set in the stone walls. To these were 
fastened heavy chains, and at the far end 
of several of the chains the attached forms 
of whitened skeletons lay gruesomely 
about. Near by, with his back toward us, 
lay a shackled 'prisoner, evidently in sleep. 

One of the skeletons the Blacks kicked 
aside. 'Then the huge padlock was opened, 
and the chain that had so recently held 
the bones of one long dead was clasped 
around my own ankle, after which the 
Blacks left, taking the light with them, 
and I was alone in the deep dungeons of 
the castle of Tara with the dried bones of 
dead men for my companions. 

For an hour silence reigned, then from 
the blackness came a sudden gasp and an 
intake of breath, followed by the sounds 
of a moving body w'hich informed me that 
the sleeper I had seen on entering the 
dungeon had awakened. A moment 
passed; then evidently he either sensed my 
presence or heard my breathing, for he 
called softly in a voice that was tantaliz- 
ingly familiar. 

“Who is there?” he asked shrilly. 

"An Earthman,” I answered softly. "Jan 
of the Bardonians. But who are you who 

speaks from the darkness and ” But 

before I could go further there came a high 
scream of joy and a wild flow t)f words 
that rang through the gloom. 

"Prince Jan! Prince Jan — it is I!' It 


5^8 


WEIRD TALES 


is I!” cried the voice. "Abel — Abel who 
loves you!” And there came a series of 
thudding sounds I knew to be that of the 
poor fellow who was jumping up and down 
in his excitement and joy. Then the 
clanking of chains told me he was strain- 
ing as far as possible toward me. 

So this was Abel — frail, timid, faith- 
ful Abel, the bird-man, who had so wor- 
shiped my physical powers and in esteem 
held me away above all others. I believe 
that now he was almost glad to be here, 
for to be near and to serve me was ever 
his greatest joy. It was some minutes 
before his wild babbling would permit 
sane speech. 

"But about yourself, Abel,” I was ask- 
ing presently. “Idow in the name of 
sanity is it that I find you here, and only 
a few hours ago saw Vonna in the royal 
box of the Queen, when with my own eyes 

I beheld her mangled form in Shebak’s 

? >• 

"But it could not have been her, Prince 
Jan,” he answered. "You see,” he ex- 
plained, "I was in the village with the 
princess while you and the others battled 
with the wolves on the plain before the 
cave. At last one of the warriors, 
wounded and exhausted, entered the cave 
for a respite. He said you had been car- 
ried off by the Vampire-Women, that the 
battle was lost, and that in a few min- 
utes the wolves would come tearing down 
the shaft into the village. 

So, knowing this, I picked up the prin- 
cess in my arms and flew up the shaft to 
the outside. Once there I rose up into 
the heavens and made for the ship 
that had brought us to the Moon of Mad- 
ness. It was my plan to secrete the prin- 
cess Vonna there while I went in search 
of you. But we never reached it, for just 
as I topped the peaks of the valley and 
was descending, a giant space-ship sud- 
denly zoomed down from the sky. Its 
side door was flung open and we were 


drawn into it. It was one of the fleet of 
the Black Raiders looking for us. Then 
we were brought to Capara and the castle 
of the Queen, and I was sent to this dun- 
geon where I have been ever since. I do 
not know what has become of the princess 
Vonna.” 

"But Vonna,” I put in. "I saw her 
dead witli my own eyes. The features 
were mangled beyond recognition, but I 
could make out the golden hair and the 
slender head-band with the long red 
feather around her head.” 

“Ah, Prince Jan, I think I can ex- 
plain,” answered Abel after a pause. 
“Just before we fled from the village sev- 
eral young girls clung around tlie princess 
and me, screaming witli fright, for the 
terrible din of the battle above reached us 
plainly. One of the girls was tall and had 
golden hair. In an effort to soothe and 
console her, the princess Vonna removed 
and gave her the head-band. It must, 
therefore, have been that girl you saw 
dead.” 

This then accounted for w’hat I had 
seen in the village of Shebak. The girl 
had not been Vonna. Vonna had been 
saved — but where was she now? Had tlie 
vengeance of Tara been turned upon her? 
I feared it. I had not seen her since I 
had been dragged from the arena, though 
I had heard her screams as she struggled 
to aid me, and could now, in imagination, 
picture her writhing under some terrible 
torture. With a groan I buried my head 
in my arms. 

rnWELVE hours passed. During that 
time, as we spoke in low tones, I had 
told the bird-man of the coming disaster 
that would soon destroy Capara, but my 
companion did not seem to mind. Evi- 
dently Abel figured that so long as he was 
beside me no harm could befall him. 

Then suddenly footsteps sounded, the 
door was pushed open, and with two 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


59 


plates in one hand and a torch in the 
other, the tall, evil-faced Black who was 
our jailer entered that dreary vault, his 
thin lips curled in a sneer at our helpless- 
ness. 

"Still here?” he jeered, standing just 
above us as his torch crackled and splut- 
tered. "Yes, I thought so. I figured that 
it would take more than your great thews, 
Earthman, to escape from the pits of 
Tara.” 

"Perhaps we are just as well off here as 
elsewhere,” I answered. "Nine more days 
and every living thing on this world shall 
die. It will take more than the brilliance 
of your Queen to keep the Moon of 
Madness from crashing into Capara.” 

The Black gave a roar of laughter. 

"That’s what you think, you dull-witted 
fool,” he taunted. "Oh, yes, we all know 
now that it was you who brought it around, 
and if you were to as much as show your 
nose in Manator you would be torn to 
shreds. But don’t think for a minute that 
the coming crash will harm either the 
Queen or a single one of her subjects.” 

He threw the plates, clattering, to our 
feet. 

"If you could but see the frantic con- 
struction that is going on in the world 
overhead, as, by the royal command of 
Tara, the people work madly day and 
night to build the needed ships. None 
sleep, and all the fleets have been recalled, 
for at ffawn on the seventh day from now 
the golden space-ship of the Queen will 
rise into the air, followed by a million 
others, each containing the ten thousand 
souls that together will number the entire 
ten billion that is the populace of Capara.” 

He stepped back a pace, regarding me 
mockingly. 

And where do you think our beauteous 
Queen is taking her people for this great 
migration? I could give you a hundred 
guesses, no doubt, and you would not be 
right in one of them. Well, I will tell 


you, rogue that you are, for it can help 
nor harm. It is to your own planet the 
Earth. Yes, the green star is where we 
are going, for the gasses that destroyed it 
have now long lifted and it will be safe. 
And we will take our great treasures with 
us, and colonize the Earth with a splendor 
that will outshine even the wonders of 
Capara. Yes, seven days from now we 
will all leave, and be a two- days’ journey 
out in the void before the Moon of Mad- 
ness strikes our world.” « 

At the door the jailer paused for a 
final taunt. 

"So, my would-be clever Earthmaji,” he 
jeered, "as you eat your swill you will have 
time to reflect upon your own dismal fail- 
ure, and the ultimate triumph of our bril- 
liant and glorious Queen.” 

Then he went out, closing the door be- 
hind him. 

Six days passed — that is six days as I 
could best reckon time in that dreary vault 
of inky blackness. At intervals the jailer 
would come with food and drink. It was 
then that I would hear of the frantic build- 
ing of the space-ships, and the haste and 
hurry of the outside world as they made 
ready for the great migration. Several 
times I asked what had been the fate of 
Vonna, but as my answer was always the 
same — a mocking laugh — I at last desisted. 

I will not attempt to pen my feelings. 
Not only were the Black Raiders going to 
escape from the coming catastrophe, but 
they were going to migrate to my own 
world as well. That was the bitterest blow 
of all. As for Abel and myself, I felt 
that we would be left to perish in the 
chains that held us, once the Blacks had 
departed from their homeland. 

And then late on the sixth night foot- 
steps sounded, the dungeon door was 
thrown open, and followed by two guards 
whose lighted torches flamed and flick- 
ered, Tara the Glorious entered that 
dreary vault and was standing before me, 


60 


WEIRD TALES 


wrapped in a long black cloak from neck 
to instep, tall and graceful, her face white 
and wondrous in the torclilight, the tiny 
diamonds sprinkled in her wavy black hair 
glittering like numerous water drops. 

ri^E Queen of the Stars wasted no time 
in greeting. 

"Stay where you are,” the words snapped 
out like a whip as I made a motion to rise 
to my feet. "Remain there wallowing in 
the filth as behoves you, for in the years 
to come you will know much of such 
misery — blinded!” 

No love or kindness was evident now. 
Immobile as a mask of pearl were her ex- 
quisite features. Only those dark eyes 
seemed alive as they flashed like angry 
meteors. 

"Yes, I am taking you with me in my 
own space-ship to the planet Earth, that 
you may be the ridicule of my court as you 
grope your way through the years as my 
captive, with the red collar of shame 
around your throat. 

"Tomorrow night then my torturers will 
come to slay the bird-man and to blind 
you. But before your eyes are lost to you 
forever there is one sight you must see — 
the marriage of the pale creature you love 
to the hideous black dwarf, Vaxarus. I 
myself shall perform the ceremony, and 
will arrange for you to see it. Then you 
are to be immediately blinded, so as to 
carry always in your memory the vision of 
your beloved being given to the arms of 
another.” 

At the doorway she paused. 

"So resign yourself to the inevitable, 
Earthman. Wlien next you hear foot- 
steps it win announce my torturers coming 
to blind you!” 

The hours passed slowly — five, ten, then 
twenty, while Abel and I lay in the dun- 
geons of Tara, waiting for die death and 
torture to come. Above us we knew the 
hurrying billions worked frantically for 


the great migration to the green star, but 
down here all was the stillness of the 
tomb, and as hour followed hour we be- 
gan to believe that that great migration 
had already begun and we were alone on 
Capara. Then suddenly light footsteps 
sounded, the door was again pushed back, 
and a slender feminine figure entered. 

I recognized her at once. She was the 
Earthwoman who had so strangely at- 
tracted me when I fought in tlie arena, 
the wife of the man I had recently killed 
— Metak. But in the name of sanity what 
could she be doing here? 

She was quite alone, and she held a 
torch in her right hand. For a moment 
she stood still, peering fearfully into the 
silent gloom before her, and the traces of 
a once great beauty were still evident in 
her matured and dignified loveliness. 
Then her eyes suddenly fell upon me 
where I lay, besmeared with grime and 
staring at her. A gasp escaped her lips 
as our eyes met; then with a little sobbing 
cry she ran toward me, dropping the torch 
and sinking to her knees as she threw her 
arms around me and cried out the last 
words I ever expected to hear. 

"Jan!” she cried. "My little baby! Oh, 
it is I, darling, it is I — ^your mother!” 

23. The Temple of the Bells 

yPY little boy, my dear little boy,” 
sobbed my lovely mother, her eyes 
wide with love and alarm, her white hands 
brushing the grime from my hair and 
wounds, for the bruises from my struggle 
with the guards had been many. "Oh, 
what have they done to you — what have 
they done to you?” she wailed. 

"Ah, but thank the Gods I have found 
you,” she went on. "Even now I cannot 
believe it. It seems too good for one who 
for twenty-three long years, night after 
night, could but look at the distant green 
star and think of the husband and the lit- 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


61 


tie son lost to her there, when the Raiders 
came and stole me from your father’s side 
and brought me to Capara, where the 
Queen forced me into the loveless mar- 
riage with Metalc.” 

I cannot clearly remember what I said 
or did, other than for the first time in my 
life my eyes knew tears and speech was 
difficult as I felt again the love of those 
two arms that had so long been lost to 
me, and the sweet voice I had not heard 
since my cradle days. 

Minutes passed, lost to us in the great 
joy of our reunion, but presently the 
thoughts of her own danger came to me. 

“But Mother, you must not stay here,’’ 

I said suddenly, realizing her peril. "I do 
not know how you possibly found me, 
but if you were ever discovered ’’ 

My mother kissed me again with a 
happy smile. "What could they possibly 
do that would hurt me after the joy of 
finding my son? No, my boy, I do not 
fear them, or anything they could do now. 

“But come, my son, you must escape, 
as we have much before us,” and she 
reached for the small pouch at her waist. 
"In two hours it will be dawn and the 
great golden space-ship of Tara will rise 
into the void, followed by a million others, 
to begin the great migration to the Earth 
before the Moon of Madness falls upon 
Capara. It is you and I who will stop 
them, my son. It is you and I who will 
avenge your father and prevent them from 
ever bringing death and destruction to any 
world again.” 

“We still stop them!” I echoed. "But 
how. Mother?” 

“By blowing Capara to a hundred tril- 
lion atoms before the space-ships have 
risen and put off for the Earth. By mak- 
ing use of the great secret I learned long 
ago from Metak, when one night in 
drunken bragadoccio he told how he had 
learned from an ancient parchment the 
secret that was supposed to be known to 


none but Tara herself — where stands the 
tiny Temple of the Bells.” 

As she spoke I had been hurriedly un- 
locking the padlocks that held my chains 
with the key she had produced. Freed, I 
turned to release Abel. 

“Hurry, my son,” went on my mother. 
“I only learned of your whereabouts by 
heavy bribery, and at any moment we may 
be discovered by the guards. My space- 
ship lies now in the courtyard, beside tlie 
Queen’s great golden flyer. We must 
reach it and make for Skull Mountain, a 
wild, towering peak, the highest on Ca- 
para; some two thousand miles directly 
to the north of us. It is on the top of 
this peak where stands the Temple of the 
Bells. 

“Haste then, my son, for in their frantic 
excitement as they prepare for the great 
migration they will be blind to our de- 
parture, and at this moment Queen Tara 
is engaged in the throneroom in some cere- 
mony. We should have ample time to 
start the ringing of the first bell, then get 
well out into the void before Capara is 
blown asunder. Once in space we will 
make for our own world, Jan, for my ship 
is well provisioned and — oh!” 

It was the frightened cry of my mother 
that caused me to wheel and learn its cause 
from where I knelt, freeing Abel from his 
shackles, to behold the huge Black jailer 
leaping upon me with uplifted dagger, his 
black features distorted with rage. Be- 
hind him I caught a glimpse of a second. 
Their entrance had been quite noiseless, 
and I was doomed, despite the fact I was 
free of my chains, for I would be unable 
to rise and defend myself before that 
descending knife had plunged into my 
flesh. 

It all happened in five seconds — five 
terrible, terrible seconds. I made a mad 
effort to scramble to my feet — the burly 
guard leaped forward, his long knife shot 
toward me — and then with a little cry my 


62 


WEIRD TALES 


dear mother sprang between us, and her 
lovely white bosom received the keen blade 
meant for my own heart. 

T KILLED the guards. Yes, with my 

naked hands I snapped the neck of the 
first, and seizing the wrist of the second 
stabbed him with his own dagger, all in 
a minute or so. Oh, vengeance was swift, 
to be sure, and in my wild rage I was a 
veritable maniac that nothing could with- 
stand but it could not save my lovely 
mother, who perished in my arms with a 
little sigh as she gasped my father’s name. 

Time passed. It might have been an in- 
stant, it might have been an age that I 
knelt there, with the slender form of my 
mother in my arms, my mind numb with 
sorrow. But at last I became conscious 
that Abel was shaking my shoulder and 
his shrill voice was in my ear. 

"Please hear me. Prince Jan — please 
hear me," he was saying. "We must get 
out of here at once if we are to do what 
your mother planned. In an hour it will 
be dawn and the fleets will depart. Please 
do not stay here longer. Prince Jan. We 
have mucli to do.” 

I looked up at him. "Yes, Abel,” I 
answered dully, "I will come — we have 
much to do.” 

Presently we were making a silent ascent 
up the great winding stairs to the world 
above, armed with the longswords and 
shortswords of the two guards I had killed, 
whUe behind us in the silent pits, my brave 
mother lay in that last terrible sleep from 
which there is no awakening. 

Vaguely I recall Abel leading me up 
numerous long flights of stairs, and down 
seemingly endless corridors, several times 
pushing me into a side room while foot- 
steps hurried past us, till at last we came 
out upon a little balcony to behold the 
great tlironeroom of Tara sixty feet below 
us. Yet everything was quite a blur up 
till then, but suddenly I became cool and 


collected as the meaning of the ceremony 
taking place below became intelligible 
to me. 

Though it was not yet dawn, that mighty 
room was brilliantly lighted. A hundred 
or more guards and nobles were assem- 
bled there, crowded around the great 
throne in its center. And upon that huge 
bejeweled seat sat Tara the Glorious, her 
golden wand extended above tlie heads of 
the two who knelt before her — ^Vonna and 
Vaxarus the dwarf. The hands of the 
golden girl had been tied behind her 
back, and a burly guard held her to her 
knees; but even from the lofty balcony I 
could see the struggling of her slender 
form as she fought against what they 
would do to her. 

I quickly realized the meaning of it all. 
Vonna was being forced to marry tlie 
hideous little dwarf. Another moment and 
the wand of Tara would touch the head 
of both of them to conclude the ceremony. 
Another moment and she would belong to 
Vaxarus forever. There was but one 
chance, and with the quickness of thought 
I took it. 

In a flash I wheeled to the bird-man, and 
whispered a score of words in his ear. 
Abel paled, but the loyal fellow never 
failed me. In an instant I was on his 
back, my right hand holding my gleam- 
ing longsword, my left hand free and 
ready. The next the bird-man had leaped 
lightly over the small railing before us, 
and with me securely straddling him shot 
down toward the assembly below with the 
speed of an arrow. 

Straight toward the kneeling Vonna 
Abel winged at terrific speed, and then at 
that very last instant swerved and rose up 
slightly. But in passing, my left arm 
swung the slender princess up beside me, 
while my right sent my keen longsword 
whirring in a vicious slash. Then as the 
head of Vaxarus tumbled from his shoul- 
ders to the floor, and the astonished as- 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


63 


sembly gasped in open-mouthed horror, 
the great wings of the bird-man churned 
the air loudly, as with Vonna and me 
clingirig to him he rose slowly above the 
heads of the others, and toward a tiny 
balcony at the far end of the room. 

From below came a roar of voices as the 
others found their tongues, but it did not 
stop the struggling Abel in his slow, up- 
ward flight, and a moment later we were 
standing on a frail little balcony near the 
lofty ceiling, that led to a narrow passage 
and a tiny porch without. 

Toward this we hurried. Sixty Feet be- 
low us I could hear the silvery voice of 
Tara screaming for our capture, and the 
wild patter of footsteps hurrying to obey 
her. But for a few minutes at least we 
were safe, and the lofty gallery we came 
out upon showed the great courtyard be- 
low, unguarded, for most of the warriors 
and guards were either in the throne- 
room or elsewhere. And there, golden 
and gigantic, lay the great space-ship of 
Tara, and beside it was the smaller one 
that my mother had mentioned was her 
own. 

Down to the doors of the latter I or- 
dered Abel to fly us, then with two strokes 
of my shortsword cut the bonds of Vonna 
and motioned them both within. 

"Hurry!” I cried, for there came a 
sound of running footsteps and the shout- 
ing of excited voices. "Hurry — -we must 
get the ship aloft before they are upon 
us!” 

And indeed there was cause for haste, 
for suddenly on all sides a wave of Black 
guards appeared from nowhere, running 
toward us and shouting. But we were 
well within the ship and had slammed 
shut its heavy doors before they were upon 
us, and the next moment we were rising 
above their heads and shooting northward, 
while our erstwhile captors howled and 
gesticulated below. 

How we managed to get the ship aloft 


will ever remain a mystery, but despera- 
tion can bring around many seeming im- 
possibilities, and with Abel beside me, in- 
structing me in the use of the various 
gears and devices — ^his many years of cap- 
tivity among the Blacks had familiarized 
the bird-man with their usage — the great 
space-ship rose as lightly as if a seasoned 
pilot guided her course. 

"Now on!” I cried. "On to the Temple 
of the Bells! Our one hope is to blow 
Capara asunder before the Blacks put off 
for my world, if we would cause their 
doom and avenge ten thousand planets!” 

"But carefully. Prince Jan,” cautioned 
Abel, moving the speed control a single 
notch. "We must stay at our slowest 
speed if we are to see and recognize Skull 
Mountain, for this is a space-ship and pos- 
sesses terrific velocity. Even now we are 
traveling with the speed of an arrow." 

And indeed we were. All around us 
the sky was lighted by the coming dawn. 
Through the lookout window we could 
see the many great cities just below us, 
intermingled with vast stretches of plains 
and sparkling rivers. The huge square 
of every metropolis was crowded with 
space-ships, and we could see the thou- 
sands of black dots hurrying into them. 
All over that great planet, in every city 
and village, the ships were making ready 
to take off, waiting only for the rising 
of the great golden ship of their Queen 
to announce the signal for their departure. 

And in the space-ship of my motlier I 
hurried toward Skull Mountain, to pre- 
vent their departure and to destroy them. 
As we shot along I told Vonna my plans. 

P RESENTLY a towering, gigantic 
mountain showed directly ahead, and 
a moment later we were able to distinguish 
the tiny temple on its top. Just beside it 
we descended lightly; then cautioning 
Vonna and Abel to remain within I drew 
my two swords, flung back the heavy doer 


64 


WEIRD TALES 


and sprang into the open in almost frantic 
haste, for I feared that even now I might 
be too late. 

It was indeed a tiny temple that stood 
upon that mighty mountain top, the high- 
est mountain top on that great world. A 
tiny little temple which was scarcely more 
than a weirdly roofed structure, open on 
all sides, hung above an enormous black 
bell which stood on a stone platform. Just 
behind it was the beginning of tlie great 
shaft that legend said led down through 
the mountain and into the very heart of 
Capara, and the huge stores of high ex- 
plosives hidden there. 

On all four sides of that mighty moun- 
taintop — a tiny flat top, but a hundred 
yards square — the earth fell away to the 
distant plains thousands of feet below. 

But stretches around a tiny campfire 
directly before that gigantic bell was that 
which was of more immediate interest to 
me — four Black warriors, the guardians 
of the Bells! 

Even as I appeared in tlie doorway of 
the ship one of them raised his head and 
saw me; and then as I dashed toward them 
he sprang up with the loud shouts that 
brought the others to their feet, drawing 
their weapons. But I was upon the first 
before he could fully unsheathe his own 
two blades, and my longsword found his 
heart even as he drew them. Then as the 
first rays of the rising sun shot up to tear 
the sky with flame, the weapons of the 
other three clashed against my own. 

The warriors who guarded the Tem- 
ple of the Bells had not been chosen at 
random. Each was a renowned fighter 
whose swordsmanship and bravery had 
made him eligible for tliat high office. But 
witli such a wild fury, and so great a cause 
to fight for, in that supreme hour I was a 
veritable superman nothing could with- 
stand. Steadily they were forced back as 
I drew ever nearer to the great bell. 

On we fought. Our keen blades glit- 


tered, clashed and crossed. Of course tlie 
guards realized my intentions and screamed 
frantic orders to each other, but they were 
unable to stop me, or do other than give 
ground. Another moment and I would 
be beside the bell, and release the iron 
catch above it that would cause the boom- 
ing roar which would shoot down the 
great shaft to the second bell, a hundred 
miles below. 

Triumph seemed within my grasp — and 
then by some cruel fate a lucky sweep of 
a warrior’s blade sent my shortsword fly- 
ing from my hand! 

There came an exclamation of joy from 
the warriors. The trio ceased to retreat, 
then with shouts of triumph leaped for- 
ward, heartened by my misfortune and 
fighting like fiends. Six blades now 
fought against my one, as flitting like a 
silvery serpent my longsword caught or 
parried each savage slash and thrust. But 
not for long could I hold against that 
veritable rain of steel. Then a lightning- 
like thrust grazed my side. I was forced 
to give two paces; and the next instant 
with a shrill cry Abel dashed past me, 
and sought to beat one of my foes to the 
earth with a flurry of his great wings. 

Poor, brave little bird-man, ready to die 
for me whom he loved! It was a noble 
but futile act. Tlie brute before him but 
laughed at his efforts as he ran him 
through with his shortsword, then tlirew 
his dying, quivering body heavily to the 
ground. 

A shout escaped me, a hoarse shout al- 
most maniacal as I sprang forward, crazed 
with grief and anger. With one sweep 
of my sword I disarmed him of his weap- 
ons. Then lashing out in that wild, su- 
perhuman stroke, which caught the Black 
squarely in the center of his head, my 
blade slashed on through skull and trunk, 
and tore to the very middle of his body. 

With aies of terror tlie others gave way 
before me, leaping backward. That little 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


65 


retreat was all I needed. In an instant I 
had sprung forv/ard, releasing the iron 
catch and hearing the mighty roar of the 
bell that spelled Capara’s doom. And the 
next instant I raised my eyes to behold the 
sight which announced my own. For com- 
ing swiftly out of the dawn in the east 
was the great golden space-ship of Tara 
the Glorious! 

But I had no time either to watcli its 
advance or flee from it, for the two guards 
had recovered from their panic and were 
leaping forward to attack. Once more 
our blades clashed. Vonna screamed for 
me to flee iUid pointed to die approaching 
ship. But the two before me fought 
bravely, and when at last I did dispatch 
one, the great ship had landed and its 
huge front door was swinging open, to 
discharge, as I supposed, a thousand war- 
riors. 

But no wild rush of armed soldiery came 
tearing through that portal, no shouting 
Blacks hurr).'ing forward to aid the one I 
fought. No; it was a tall and long-limbed 
beauty who strode ma jestically through the 
open doorway, and she was quite alone — 
a glorious, black-haired Queen who had 
Icnown ages before the dawning, and those 
wondrous dark eyes, wide and flashing, 
took in the situation at a glance, sweeping 
around that flat, lofty mountaintop, then 
returning to me again. 

I was still engaged with the guard be- 
fore me, but it was evident Tara realized 
that not for long could the Black with- 
stand me. Already he was streaming blood 
from several serious wounds, and though 
fighting madly was being steadily forced 
back to die lofty peak’s stone edge. An- 
other moment and he would either be 
forced over it, or fall before my sword. 
And then the gaze of Tara fell upon the 
golden girl. 

A w'ild joy leaped to that wonderful 
face, and running to-^ard the slender 
Vonna she forced her to her knees, whip- 


ping out a long dagger and holding ii- 
above her heart, at the same instant my 
longsword pierced the body of my foe. 
And then I sprang forward to aid the prin- 
cess of Penelope, but the wild scream of 
Tara stopped me in my tracks. 

“Back!” she cried, her black eyes blaz- 
ing, her left hand holding the struggling 
Vonna with the ease one might a child — 
her shapely right hand raised and hold- 
ing the long, jev/eled dagger. "Back be- 
fore my blade is buried in the body erf this 
pale creature!” 

I halted — there was notliing else I could 
do — for there w-as a wild light in those 
flashing eyes that was almost maniacal, 
and another step might send her long 
knife plunging downward. 

"Oh, I knew I would find you here,” 
she went on with a terrible calmness. "I 
knew it from the moment they told me 
they found the body of Metak’s wife — 
your mother — in the dungeons. So she 
did know the secret tlien — where stood 
the Temple of the Bells. I often suspected 
at much. 

"But she perished just the same, and so 
shall this pale one you love!” cried Tara. 
"For all your fighting ability, and for all 
you have accomplished, it will not save this 
woman, or make less terrible my venge- 
ance on those whose doom I seek. Behold 
— she dies!” 

And with a high wild scream, she drove 
her knife toward tlie breast of the kneel- 
ing, helpless Vonna! 

But that long knife never touched the 
flesh of the golden girl, nor was the 
vengeance of Tara realized. Even as she 
spoke, I had become conscious of the 
moving form behind her — Abel the Tor, 
bleeding, dying, but yet alive. Slowly, 
painfully he was sneaking up behind the 
unsuspecting Queen. It was that which 
helped to hold me, as I hoped my presence 
would distract Tara from his advance. 

And so it was that even as the sharp 


66 


WEIRD TALES 


knife began its plunge downward, Abel 
seized her wrist and held it. Then mus- 
tering the last of his waning strength, the 
bird-man spread his great wings and rose 
slowly upward, his single white garment 
dripping blood, and the struggling, 
screaming Tara held firmly in his grasp. 

Higher, higher into the blue the flap- 
ping bird-man mounted, as fighting madly 
the frantic Queen sought to release her- 
self. 

.^nd there w'e stood at the very edge of 
the mighty mountaintop, Vonna and I, 
staring like tw'o wide-eyed statues at that 
weird, nightmarish scene — the shrieking 
Queen, the great depths belov/, the loud 
and dismal flapping of the bird-man’s mas- 
sive wings. Even now I cannot recall it 
without a wild thrill shooting through me. 

A hundred feet above our heads and out 
over die great void, Abel suddenly re- 
leased his victim, as a gasp of horror es- 
caped both Vonna and me. And then, 
screaming wildly, twisting and turning 
over and over, the white body of Tara the 
Glorious shot downward, just missing the 
edge of the jagged peak, to go falling, 
falling to the terrible depths, thousands of 
feet below. A high and silvery drawn-out 
scream stabbed up to us in a blood-chilling 
echo. 

But she did not fall alone, how'ever. 
Hardly had the beauteous Queen of the 
Stars plunged past to her destruction, be- 
fore a shudder shook Abel’s slender form. 
His great wings suddenly faltered and fell, 
as the last of his strength waned from him. 
And then in a terrible silence the limp 
form of the bird-man dropped in the wake 
of his screaming victim to the awful depths 
below. , ^ 

24. Back to Barth 

V 'ONNA was sobbing wildly, hysteri- 
cally, when I reached her side. 
"Q)me!” I cried raising her to her feet. 


"Come quickly — we have not a moment to 
lose!’’ For out from the great shaft be- 
hind the temple had suddenly roared a 
metallic thunder that announced the echo 
of the second bell, a hundred miles below. 

"In fifty minutes this planet will be 
blown to atoms, and if we are not far out 
in space by then, we shall perish with the 
rest!’’ 

Together we hurried into the golden 
space-ship of Tara. It w'as well fueled, 
well provisioned, much faster than the 
other and just as easily piloted. I turned 
to its glittering controls, remembering the 
words of Abel which advised of their use. 
Once more luck was with us, and pres- 
ently the huge flyer, well able to hold ten 
thousand in its mighty interior, w'as rising 
into the void, at first comparatively slowly 
but gradually increasing as Capara dropped 
away; then once beyond the pull of gravity- 
and out into space I set the guiding needle 
toward the planet Earth, and pulling back 
the speed control to its final notch, I sent 
the great golden space-ship shooting to- 
ward my distant w'orld with the speed of a 
falling star. 

'Through the lookout glass of the pilot 
room w'e could see mighty Capara fall 
aw'ay, vast cities, seas and plains growing 
smaller with each moment. And then its 
continents, appearing as massive black out- 
lines on its huge expanse which covered 
half the heavens; then a third, then a 
fourth. And through that thick lookout 
glass we could also see the Moon of Mad- 
ness, now but twenty thousand miles from 
Capara and swiftly coming closer. In two 
more days it should strike the mother 
planet in the hideous crash that would 
mean the destruction of both worlds, but 
long before that Capara would be no more. 

"But Jan,’’ Vonna asked as the great 
ship tore along, "will not the inhabitants 
of Capara follow in their space-ships and 
escape the explosion the same as we.^ 'They 
were'supposed to leave at dawn.’’ 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


67 


"But not till Tara leails them,” I an- 
swered, with hands on the control gear 
and looking through the glass before me. 
"The great migration was to begin with 
tire rising of ten thousand ships from the 
golden city of Manator. Then from all 
parts of Capara and its other great cities 
the ships of the others would fall in line 
behind. But this huge ship of Tara’s was 
supposed to lead them, and at this moment, 
back at her capital, her officers and gener- 
als are awaiting her return.” 

Moments passed, tense, anxious mo- 
ments, as we drew swiftly away from Ca- 
para. Our terrific velocity shot us wildly 
along. Of course it would take some hun- 
dred and fifty long days during which we 
must remain within the ship as the golden 
flyer tore through the cold wastes of outer 
space. Blit I felt I had avenged my own 
world, and my eyes were fixed on Capara, 
for in a few minutes should occur the great 
explosion which meant the end of that 
planet. 

And then there came that sudden scream 
from Vonna which broke upon my 
thoughts and wheeled me in my tracks. 
The eyes of the golden girl were staring 
into the room behind us, wide with horror 
and fear. In a twinkling my gaze fol- 
lowed hers to behold, the reason. 

The pilot room in which we stood was 
a tiny one, compared to the otlier rooms 
of the great ship. A small and open frail 
door was all that separated us from tlie 
next, an enormous chamber. In the cen- 
ter of that chamber a long passage led on 
and on through the other rooms, to the 
far end of the ship. And walking slow’ly 
up the passage toward us was the huge 
beast I had seen several times before — 
Ranga, the great black lion that was the 
pet and guard of Tara! 

In a flash I realized our helplessness. 
My own longsword. I had dropped when 
assisting Vonna to her feet. The golden 
girl, of course, was unarmed, and any 


weapons that might be in tire ship were 
in the rooms beyond the lion. Tlie great 
beast had already seen us, and its green 
eyes were gleaming wickedly. For a mo- 
ment it stood watching us intently, lash- 
ing its black sides wdth an agile tail. Then 
that tail suddenly extended to its full 
length, quivering as though from excite- 
ment. The huge mouth opened to reveal 
long, white, cruel teeth. 

And then with a deafening roar that 
echoed through the space-ship in a fear- 
some bellow, it charged straight down the 
passage and upon us with the speed of an 
arrow. 

But at the same instant I sprang past 
the frail door and locked that little barrier 
behind me, temporarily protecting the 
girl. Then, weaponless, I wheeled to meet 
the charge of the huge beast, just as the 
great black lion' rose upon its hind legs to 
grapple with me. 

A S THE great cat reared up, its ears 
were glued against its head, and its 
green eyes glittered hate. It snarled and 
its foul breath shot into my face in nauseat- 
ing waves. Then the great mouth flew 
wide to seize me, but it was instantly halted 
and blocked, as with an instinct quicker 
than any brain, I drove my right *fist 
straight into its slavering jaws. 

The next instant the huge teeth snapped 
shut upon my forearm like a trap, and w'e 
both went crashing to the floor. 

Over we rolled, once, twice, then 
stopped with me on top. In a flash the 
mighty paws smashed against my naked 
side — for ' I wore only a loin-clotli and 
sandals — as it sought to rake my body with 
its claws. But luckily the attendants at 
Tara’s court had kept those same claws 
well-trimmed and dulled, lest by some 
mishap they might scratch their royal mis- 
tress. And so, though they did manage 
to tear and lacerate me badly, I knew that 
for a time at least they could not kill. 


6S 


WEIRD TALES 


My fist and arm still occupied the 
mighty jaws of the brute, gave it some- 
thing to chew on. I knew that at all costs 
I must keep them there, despite the ex- 
cruciating agony. Slowly I forced my fist 
farther and farther down that slimy throat. 

But could I keep it there? At the onset 
I had blocked the huge jaws, but the tor- 
true was hideous. 

The hind-quarters of the beast were 
thrashing wildly beneath me, and despite 
the trimmed and dulled claws they were 
still terrible weapons, for they ripped sav- 
age stroke after stroke that laid the flesh 
of my thighs, hips and sides open to the 
bone. Then as one hind claw sank deep 
into my thigh, and caught there for a sec- 
ond against the bone, I pinned the leg be- 
neath me with a quick turn of my knee. 
The other paw still tore and gashed, but a 
few moments later I was able to pin it also. 

Meanwhile the hideous growls never 
ceased for an instant, nor the black bulk 
its wild thrashing. 

Everything within me cried out for re- 
lief from the terrible torture. But even 
then, from the depths of me, a stronger 
will asserted itself — the subconscious will 
to live. At first my defense had been that 
of a doomed and cornered creature: self- 
preservation. But now the fires of fury 
and hope of victory were rising steadily 
within me. I was no longer fighting to 
save my life. I was Jan of the Bardonians, 
defending my mate and destroying an 
enemy — a hideous, hideous enemy! 

The lion coughed and gasped. I re- 
doubled my efforts, stifling my screams 
with teeth that bit through bleeding lips. 
And then there came that last horrible 
crunching sound, a final, frantic heave 
from me, and the right front limb of the 
black lion snapped in my strong grasp, 
broken! 

How much longer I could keep up that 
terrible struggle I did not know, but I be- 
gan to be aware of a growing advantage. 


My efforts were telling. I knew by the 
lion’s growing distress as it strangled and 
contorted its body in paroxysms of torture. 
Its hind-quarters lashed and lashed; its 
chest rolled beneath me. And then it 
choked again, and its breath came in harsh 
gasps of agony as it strove madly to dis- 
gorge the hand that stifled it. 

Those green eyes that once flamed such 
a wild hatred were now dim and popping. 
The roars and snarls had died away to a 
horrible gasping sound. The tongue 
flopped out sidewise between its jaws as if 
paralyzed. And then as I saw it was weak- 
ening I shouted a loud, half -crazed laugh 
of joy, and pressed the offensive fiercely. 

I raised my body up and beat it down 
again and again on the lion’s gaunt torso. 
I raised a knee and hammered it down into 
the chest and vitals of the beast with all 
my strength, and heard the flesh and ribs 
give way. "I’ll get you!’’ I snarled into 
that savage face. "I’ll get you!” 

More than a moment of this. To me it 
seemed an hour. And then with a final 
convulsive shudder, the body of the great 
black lion straightened out and went limp. 
The jaws relaxed slowly. The beast was 
dead! 

And yet for several minutes I clung 
there, fighting against the descending 
blackness, before I dared loosen my hold 
on the four corners of the brute and slowly 
draw forth my mangled hand. It was a 
sickening sight, red, ragged, shapeless, and 
almost without feeling, for the nerves had 
been mutilated. E'v^en if I could save it, 
it would be of little use to me henceforth, 
I knew. 

Weakly I rolled off the black body and 
got to my feet. I made my w'ay toward 
the little door. It swam before me, but I 
somehow managed to unlock and push it 
open, then sink to my knees on the floor 
of the tiny pilot room beyond. 

I have a faint memory of Vonna run- 
ning to my side and striving frantically to 


A MILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE 


69 


ease me. Of her dear voice in my ear 
crying again and again that she loved me. 
Then my dimming gaze went through the 
lookout window to tlie giant planet, Ca- 
para, now a hundred thousand miles away. 
And even as I watched, a gigantic cloud of 
flame and smoke shot up in its very center, 
tearing it asunder. And when the void 
had cleared again, the world of the Black 
Raiders was no more! 

Then the black clouds rolled forward 
to claim me, and I lunged unconscious to 
the floor of the pilot room. 

TT WAS months later that we landed 

upon my own world, the green planet, 
Earth. 

During that great journey it was the 
tender and tireless care of Vonna that 
slowly nursed me back to life and health. 
While that mighty ship shot on and on 
through the endless wastes of space, we 
came to realize that we had been meant 
only for each other, despite the fact our 
respective worlds were many millions of 
miles apart. And during the slow passing 
of the many, many hours, it was the golden 
girl who taught me to read and write, and 
so made this narrative possible. 

And then one dusk that journey ended, 
and the great space-ship came to rest at 
last upon the Earth that was my home. 
But I did not possess sufficient skill to land 
the huge ship lightly, and tliough Vonna 
and I were both unhurt, its great bow 
crumpled with the force of the impact, and 
rendered it useless for further flight. 

It was a wild and desolate spot upon 
which we landed, thousands of miles from 
my homeland, and near the edge of a 
mighty canyon— a colossal abyss that fell 
away for thousands of feet, and of such 
enormous size that the eye could not see 
its farthest side. Miles away and dimly in 
the north was the beginning of a dreary 


moss-covered waste that had once been the 
bottom of a great ocean. A cold, autum- 
nal wind told of the oncoming winter. 

That night while a million stars gleamed 
coldly overhead, Vonna and I stood on the 
rocky brink of the great canyon talking in 
low tones. Behind us lay the golden 
space-ship whidi had brought us across 
the great void — now crumpled and useless 
for further flight, but still a home and 
haven, and streaming a flood of light from 
its open doorway. 

And we were alone! The only man, the 
only woman upon the planet. Earth! I 
said as much to Vonna, said it in a tired, 
lifeless tone. 

"But we can begin it anew, my Jan,” 
answered Vonna softly. "Can start this 
world all over again, just you and I.” 

"Begin all over again, remake the world, 
you and I.^” I gave a tired shrug, my right 
arm hanging limp and useless at my side. 

"Yes, yes, beloved,” she went on 
eagerly, her beautiful face glowing with 
earnestness. "We can start again like the 
first pair in the dim and distant dawning. 
We have our strength, our hopes, our love. 
The ship is well provisioned, and we can 
stay in it during the coming winter. And 
then in the spring when the snows have 
gone and the world returns to sunshine, 
we can begin preparing for a home” — her 
voice dropped low, and faltered — "and 
perha|)s for the beginning of a new race, 
Jan, with you and me as its parents. 

I turned to find tlie golden girl looking 
eagerly at me, her lovely face lit with that 
wonderful light that needs no interpreta- 
tion. And my arms went out and around 
her and I nodded my assent. And then 
our lips met in that long, long kiss that 
made us one forever. 

Far out in the mighty void a single star 
shot across tlie heavens — falling — falling 
— falling! 


[The End} 











“They were after her, too, because they imagined she was his mistress.” 

70 


Bol 







(^n Pell Street 

By FRANK OWEN 

Chinatown keeps to the old lanes — by the author of "The Purple 
Seai’ and "The Wind That Tramps the Worlds’ 


S AM WONG was in a particularly 
morose state that night because his 
.beloved caiury, Li Po, named after 
the most illustrious of Chinese poets, had 
died tliat morning. One last sweet song, 
then death. Li Po had trilled an anthem 
to the sun. He had died from excess emo- 
tion, from excess of beauty. Anyway that 
is how Sam Wong diagnosed his passing. 
His grief was extreme. 

The fondness of Chinese for birds is 
traditional. In China it is no uncommon 
sight to see a rich man walking along the 
street, carrying a canary in a cage, taking 
the little songster out for a walk to enjoy 
the sunset. Sam Wong had always re- 
gretted that the custom of Manhattan pre- 
cluded his walking about the streets with 
Li Po. To be sure there was nothing to 
prevent him doing so. But it would direct 
attention to him and he did not at that 
particular stage of his nefarious career care 
to be the target for the eyes of men. Bet- 
ter to be a shadow, for a shadow is inde- 
structible, with nothing to dread or fear. 

Now as he walked along the Bowery he 
beheld a thin wisp of a girl standing be- 
fore a window. Her face was like old 
ivory, colorless. Her hair was burnished 
copper, and in her large dark eyes were 
all the sorrows of the world. Sam Wong 
sighed. 

He was an ardent worshipper of 
aU beautiful things. He noticed that her 
hands were clenched so tightly, the nails 
of the fingers were white. Softly he glided 
over to her side. 


"May I be forgiven for addressing you?” 
he whispered. "I do so at the risk of 
arousing your wrath. But I am only Sam 
Wong, a Chinese, with much money and 
yet poor, for tonight I am lonely. Accept 
my friendship until the moon rises. When 
one is sad, the moon, too, weeps. In its 
sympathy it is dependable. I wonder if 
you are hungry.” 

“Very hungry,” she admitted. "All my 
life I’ve been hungry for something be- 
yond my fingertips.” 

"Perhaps it is hunger of the heart.” 

While they talked, Sam Wong had led 
the way across the street and around the 
corner to an Oriental restaurant, the dim 
lights of which were soothing to the 
nerves. 

“What do you wish?” he asked. 

“Anything will do,” she said listlessly. 

“You are right,” he agreed, “all effort 
is as useless as summer dust.” 

She sighed. "It is so quiet and peaceful.” 

"Don’t talk,” said he. "Rest. Forget 
that I am with you. Here is the tea. In 
Chinese restaurants they do not wait for 
one to order the liquor that does not in- 
toxicate.” 

He filled a small cup, and placed it be- 
fore her. Then he spoke in subdued tones 
to the waiter, ordering chicken-mushroom 
soup, chow mein, roast young pork and a 
variety of almonds and condiment deli- 
cacies. 

Then once more he turned to the girl. 
“Your name?” 

“Just Barby.” 


71 


72 


WEIRD TALES 


"Barby,” he repeated slowly. "It is a 
pretty name.” 

Barby breathed deeply of the sweet 
aroma of the tea, fragrance of jasmine 
blossoms. 

Sam Wong sipped his tea and looked at 
her through half-dosed eyes. Had she 
been a written picture, he could not have 
been more absorbed in her. A strangely 
beautiful girl with a face of ivory pallor. 
No painted lady. No common girl of the 
streets. - ' ■’ 

He longed to know her history but he 
asked no question. He was infinitely 
patient and he waited. 

Not till the soup had been placed be- 
fore them did Barby speak again. Then 
after she had tasted it, she said, "Gee, but 
this is good. I don’t know how long it is 
since I’ve tasted food. Funny that the 
body goes on living after the soul is dead.” 

Sam Wong looked up quickly. She had 
disturbed his tranquillity. The bitterness 
in her tone was astounding. 

"Not true,” he said bluntly. "Your 
soul is not dead. I see it shining from 
your eyes, fine and white and beautiful. 
The past doesn’t matter. It is a sim gone 
down. But of the present, I wish to speak. 
The hours that have not happened belong 
to you. Tell me where will you sleep to- 
night?” 

"Does it matter?” 

"To me, infinitely.” 

"Why?” 

"I am a lover of jewels and jade. I am 
swayed by perfect sonnets. Although I 
was born in San Francisco and have never 
been in China, the Yellow River flows 
through my blood. I have fallen under 
the spell of your eyes, the spell of their 
dark brooding mystery. There is far too 
little beauty in this world for any of it to 
be destroyed. And you are beautiful.” 

She closed her eyes and struggled to 
choke back a sob. Last night she had be- 
longed to Bat Matson; the night before an 


unknown man had beaten her in a Third 
Avenue hall bedroom. 

"I am homeless,” she murmured. 

"I will take you back with me to my 
house,” he said. "My rooms are near by, 
on Pell Street. The flat is large and fairly 
comfortable, large enough so I need not 
get in your way. There no one wall dis- 
turb you, for I discourage visitors. In 
Chinatown I am a man of mystery. It is 
right therefore that I should shelter a girl 
of mystery. Be assured that I am actuated 
by honorable motives. Sam Wong is but 
a humble merchant, a merchant who deals 
in beauty, a merchant of dreams. How 
then can I stand idly by while beauty is 
destroyed?” 

"All right,” she said w'earily. "I will 
trust you, and why not? I have trusted 
everylx)dy else, and I have nowhere to 

go-” 

T he meal was finished in silence. Thanks 
to the gentle care of Sam Wong 
she ate heartily. Her young body yearned 
for food. And now she could scarcely 
keep her eyes open. 

&m Wong paid the check. He led the 
way from the restaurant. As they turned 
into Chinatown, he held her arm lightly. 
Through the narrow twisting adventurous 
streets they walked, streets about which 
more fabulous tales have been written 
than any other section of New York, per- 
haps of all the world. Few of them are 
true. The most interesting and sinister 
have never been written. Colorful stores 
displaying a vast variety of gewgaws, nick- 
nacks, ivories, jades and raw fish. Joss 
houses. The Chinese theatre. A Catho- 
lic priest walking slowly along apparently 
lost in thought. No one bothering them, 
no one paying the least attention to their 
doings, and yet Barby felt as though count- 
less eyes were following them, watching 
their every move. Strange smells, strange 
sounds, laughter, weird music. A child 


ON PELL STREET 


crying. Chinatown, a vast rug wafted on 
the wdnds from the Orient to be cast down 
in the heart of the city. One of the most 
congested spots in all New York and one 
of the cleanest. No littered dirty streets, 
no piles of filth, not mucli dust. Immacu- 
late cleanliness as though great brooms in 
the hands of genii had swept it clean. 

Sam Wong led the way up two flights 
of wdnding stairs in a building on Pell 
Street. There was no light in the halls 
and he lighted a cigarette to show her the 
way. 

"Be not afraid,” said he. "The halls 
arc in darkness because I believe that he 
w'ho must walk through narrow places 
should be protected by shadow's.” 

"I am not afraid,” said Barby. 

And now he unlocked a door and 
pressed an electric button. The next mo- 
ment a glare of light shattered the black- 
ness and Barby follow'ed him into a room 
of such sheer beauty it might have be- 
longed to a Mandarin when the Manchus 
were at their peak of glory. Here was 
wealth inestimable. Rich carpets and 
tapestries, priceless porcelains, teakwood 
tables and finely carved cabinets in one of. 
w'hich reposed a hundred species of jewels, 
some rough, uncut, some that glowed eerily 
in the lantern light. Here were comfortable 
chairs, embroidered screens, written pic- 
tures, carved statues in jade, nephrite, 
agate and carnelian. 

"The apartment has sundry rooms,” said 
Sam Wong. "Consider yourself mistress 
of it. I sleep in a small room in the front. 
I suggest that you make your personal 
apartment in the rooms at the back.” 

Barby slipped into a chair. She knew 
that Sam Wong was trustw'orthy. He had 
no designs upon her person. To meet such 
a man was somewhat of a novelty. 

Impulsively she turned to him. "I cannot 
understand,” she said, "why you should be 
interested in my welfare.” 

"Have I not told you? It is my belief 


' 73 

that no beautiful thing should be allowed 
to perish. One of eardi’s extreme tragedies 
is that flowers ever must fade. So much 
time is devoted to an effort to banish crime 
from the world, when to purge the world 
of sin it w'ould only be necessary to banish 
ugliness. When I beheld you I was en- 
tranced. Even the stars must tremble to 
behold you. If flowers can know jealousy, 
they must be stirred when you pass. Then, 
too, for years I have had a canary. His 
name was Li Po. He was a sweet singer. 
He sang paeans to the dawn. He died as 
he had lived, worshipping beauty. And I 
was very lonesome when Li Po was gone. 
Something precious had been snatched 
from my life. In extreme melancholia I 
walked along the Bowery. Then my eyes 
beheld you. Beauty had been snatched 
from my life in the vanished songs of Li 
Po. Now beauty had come back again 
with the approach of an ivory girl. I am 
your slave for as long as you clioose to 
share my dwelling. When you are gone 
my life will be eternally devastated. I 
make no effort to hold you. You are 
free, though I hope for a while at least 
you will remain to make up to me for the 
loss of my little comrade. You are per- 
haps unacquainted with grief; if so you 
cannot appreciate my anguish.” 

She placed her hand ujTon his arm. "I 
had a baby,” she said. "A few weeks ago 
my boy died and nobody cared. Had you 
who worship beauty been near my room 
that night on Third Avenue he might be 
still alive. After all, perhaps it is better. 
How could he succeed with ever}'thing 
against him? I know how you must grieve 
over Li Po.” 

rpHE days flowed along like poetry, 
never distinct, never quite real. Stuff 
of dreams, dust of moonrise, breath of 
roses. Notliing beautiful is ever real. 

Barby was being v/ooed back to health 
by silence, complete tranquillity. No music 


74 


WEIRD TALES 


is as majestic as silence, absolute silence. 
Each morning Sam Wong slipped from 
the house before she had awakened. He 
never came near her room. He never 
touched her body. Not even a kiss did he 
seek. But he wooed her in a thousand 
subtle ways. And when her face began to 
take on some semblance of color he was 
glad. 

Barby never left the apartment even 
when Sam Wong was away. She was 
afraid of the streets, the filthy noisy streets 
and the evil faces of men. Sam Wong 
brought her beautiful garments fit for a 
Manchu princess. She always wore them 
in the rooms, saving her single dress for 
such time as it would be necessary for her 
to return to the streets. 

During those days she slept much, with- 
out trepidation, without fear. She never 
locked the door of her room. She had 
faith in Sam Wong. He w'as a genial 
philosopher. He never tried to force his 
favors upon her. One may bow down in 
worship before a goddess, but one should 
not presume beyond obeisance. Perhaps 
Sam Wong was foolish in his attitude. 
Certainly he was not a moralist, for his 
stock in trade destroyed the souls of men. 

They never w'ent out to dinner. All 
meals were sent in from near-by restau- 
rants. Every conceivable luxury graced 
their table. 

Barby was glad Sam Wong never urged 
her to appear upon the streets with him, 
although she was surprised that he did not. 
How was she to know that a hundred men 
constantly waited an opportunity to kill 
him? The police, too, were constantly on 
his trail. His increasing influence was re- 
sented in high places. The streets were 
not conducive to health. It was not his 
wish to parade his ivory girl in the face of 
danger. Better to keep her hidden away 
from baleful eyes. 

At times he read Chinese love poems to 
her that thrilled her immeasurably. He 


chanted the verses in a softly modulated 
voice. It was a new strange country to 
Barby. She closed her eyes and listened. 
She scarcely breathed, so intent she was. 
It was restful. It soothed her nerves. 
Sometimes for hours they sat thus as Sam 
Wong read to her from his countless vol- 
umes of Far Eastern lore. 

One night he entered the apartment 
breathlessly as though he had run a long 
distance. His usual calm mien was ruffled. 
His hands worked nerv'ously. 

"Quick, follow me!” he cried hoarsely. 
"There is not a moment to lose.” He 
opened a secret door in a wall panel, dis- 
closing a black passageway. Into this he 
crept and dragged Barby after him. The 
panel swung shut again, leaving them in 
impenetrable blackness. 

"Be not afraid. Ivory Girl,” he mur- 
mured, "but enemies are pursuing me and 
if w'e fell into their hands the conse- 
quences might be dreadful. I was a fool 
to subject you to disaster. But you will be 
quite safe if you follow my instructions.” 

While he had been speaking they had 
been creeping up a winding stair. Pres- 
enfly they emerged on the roof-tops. It 
was strange to be slinking along like shad- 
ows under the pale moon’s glare. The 
sounds of the street drifted to their ears, 
laughter, harsh noises, the wail of a motor 
siren, the bark of a dog. 

S AM WONG sped from roof to roof. 

Nimbly Barby ran along beside him. 
At last they darted into a doorway. 

"Go down these stairs,” he said, "and 
you will be free. Get away from China- 
town as soon as you can. I haven’t a mo- 
ment to loiter. Perhaps some day we will 
meet again and I can recite more lyrics to 
you.” 

The next moment he was gone. It was 
almost as though he had vanished into the 
air. It was an eery night, weird and 
creepy. The moon caused the chimneys 


ON PELL STREET 


75 


I 


to stand out in grotesque silhouette. A 
train on the Third Avenue “el” went 
grinding by. And now she imagined she 
could make out the forms of figures creep- 
ing along tlie rooftops. They were after 
Sam Wong. They were after her, too, 
because they imagined she was his mistress. 
In terror she turned and sped down the 
stairs. 

The halls were dimly lighted. They 
too seemed to be seething with wraitlis and 
shadows. Once a malevolent face loomed 
up before her and two gnarled bony hands 
clutched at her like talons. But she evaded 
them and continued down the stairs. She 
breathed a sigh of relief as she reached the 
street. But even now she dreaded to look 
behind her. Hurriedly crossing the street 
she turned neither to right nor left and so 
it was that she did not notice the large beer 
truck tliat was bearing down upon her. 
As she went down, the truckman clamped 
on the brakes and a woman screamed. But 
Barby felt no pain, she even smiled, for 


miraculously Sam Wong was bending over 
her. 

"Come, Ivory Girl,” he said gently. 
"We will go back to my rooms where we 
can find quietude.” 

"But is there no danger?” she asked. 

"Not now,” said he, and her wonder- 
ment grew. 

So hand in hand they walked back to 
Sam Wong’s apartment on Pell Street. But 
now the stairs did not seem dark as they 
mounted. Tliere was a pale blue glow as 
though a lantern had been lighted. 

As Sam Wong pushed open die door of 
the apartment, Li Po greeted them witli a 
song so beautiful it seemed as though the 
city had paused and stood on tiptoe to 
listen. 

Barby placed her hand on Sam Wong’s 
arm. “But I thought Li Po was dead,” she 
whispered. 

Sam Wong smiled reassuringly. "Not 
dead,” he said softly, "living. Now we 
are all — ^living.” 


fars of the Dead 

By JAMES ARTHUR 

Speak not above a whisper, lest the dead 
Wake to avenge themselves; and say no word 
Of anydiing which may bring down the dread 
Curse on us like a hawk upon a bird. 

Silence is fitting here — ^the dead have ears 
That never sleep; they wreak their dark designs 
Without restraint, nor do they brandish spears 
Fashioned from ore of any earthly mines. 

I know their wrath, for I have seen their fli^it 
Through the dark labyrinths of murky ni^t 
To visit whom they hate, and I havekeard 
The hissing of their cauldrons as they stirred 
The blood of men in a most loathsome broth. 

And hell-fire sputtering the dripping ftodi. 



Uhe 



entle Werewolf 


By SEABURY QUINN 

A remarkably gentle creature — that werewolf. But she was a lady 
And the lady was in love. 


S PRING had come to Galilee and 
summer was not far behind. Al- 
ready the plain of Jordan was show- 
ing brown and bare, a desert of dun sand 
and dust with here and there a patch of 
wiry goat-grass, but in the foothills of the 
Lebanons the fresh soft verdure washed 


the slopes with a green tide that broke 
into a froth of blossoms on the flat crests 
of the knolls. Southward, in Cairo the 
Magnificent, the Sultan Baibas plotted war, 
but the citizens of Acre paid small heed to 
warnings brought by spies and friendly 
Arabs. Since Saint Louis and his hard-fight- 


76 



THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


77 



iiig blades sailed for France in 1245 they 
had lived in constant peril of the Paynim; 
yet their basalt walls had broken wave on 
wave of Moslem soldiery — and it was 
spring. Why worry over rumored wars 
when the soft breeze played among the 
branches of the orchards, the soil smelt 
sweet and warm and tiie larks and linnets 
piped their minstrelsy in every coppice? 

The men-at-arms on watch at the Gate 
of Saint George waved friendly greetings 
to the little company of youtlis and maidens 
who clattered through the tunneled en- 
trance and out into the simlight burnishing 
the high road to Tiberius. Six of them 
there were, .two noble squires and the 
young knight Gaussin de Sollies, and with 
them three maids of the highest blood of 
Outremer. * 

They rode without attendants, for tlie 
Peace of Jerusalem still held and they had 
no fear of Paynim raiders, and this w^as 
Beyond-the-Sea, not France, and chaperon- 
age was an institution strange to them. 
Like their cousins overseas tliey were, yet 
strangely unlike, for while in France and 

* Lands held by the Crusaders. 


And inside his broken, empty heart, 
echoed a cry: "Sylvanettc.” 


England maids toiled at the broidering- 
frame and youths rode forth on raids or 
hunted in die forests where the sun was 
cold, and few of them could form the 
letters of his name, these children weaned 
in Palestine were born to luxury and reared 
in ease. Their Western manners warmed 
and softened by long contact with the East, 
they had escaped the thrall of crudity, 
abysmal ignorance and uncleanliness of 
Europe’s mediaeval thousand years without 
a badi. Unguents spiced with scents from 
Cathay and Persia were theirs; the Arabs’ 
vapor bath w'as part of their routine; once 
a week at least skilled masseurs came to 
tend diem; not less than once a month a 
eunuch barber or deft woman shaved their 


All night he lay sleepless. 


78 


•WEIRD TALES 


bodies till they were as free of surplus hair 
as those of newborn infants. 

A dozen peoples served them: mer- 
chants from Damascus and Baghdad 
brought them cloths the like of which were 
seldom seen in Europe; scores of dark- 
eyed Syrians were at their instant call; 
courteous Arabs and sleek Greeks had 
taught them prosody, philosophy and 
rhetoric They spoke — and read and 
wrote— French, Arabic, Latin and Greek 
with easy interchangeability. 

As they mounted the first range of foot- 
hills young Gaussin touched the gold- 
bossed bridle of his saddlemate. "Wilt 
tarry beneath the trees with me a .while, 
Syiv’ette?” he asked. "There is somewhat 
I would say to thee.” 

The girl looked at him, smiling, and 
drew her Arab pacer’s rein. A moment 
later, as their friends rode down into the 
farther valley, they walked their horses to 
the grove of flowering almond trees and 
Gaussin leaped down from his saddle to 
take the girl’s slim foot in his hand and 
assist her to dismount. 

Since Adam first looked into Eve’s eyes 
there has been no woman in creation who 
could not tell when she was about to re- 
ceive the offer of a man’s devotion, and the 
telegraph of Eros warned Sylvanette de 
Gavaret. A flush as delicate as the almond 
blossoms overhead spread up her throat, 
across her cheeks and on her high, white 
brow. She looked at him, eyes wide, lips 
parted; she was breathing faster as he took 
her hand, slipped off the pearl-sewn gaunt- 
let, and kissed her fingers. 

No chevalier’s kiss this, no mere salute 
of gallantry, but homage, worship utter 
and complete as that of worshipper before 
a shrine. 

"Syiv’ette ma drue!” he paraphrased the 
Arthurian romance, "Syiv’ette met mie, en 
vous ma mort, en vous ma vie! (Sylvette 
my little bird, Sylvette my dear, in you my 
death, in you my life) .” 


Her eyes were soft with love and trust 
as she laid her other hand upon his crisply 
curling auburn hair and capped the verse 
in a voice scarcely louder than a fluttering 
breath : 

"Bel ami, ainsi, va de nous! 

Ne vous sans moi, ni moi sans vous! 

Fair love, let us together be, 

Not thou sans me, nor I sans thee!” 

He looked up, wondering incredulity in 
his eyes. "Lovest thou me, then, Syiv’ette?” 

"With all the heart of me, my Gaussin.” 

Time and life are one, eternity is differ- 
ent, immeasurable; and eternity, though 
but an instant clipped from time’s relent- 
less dial, was theirs as they exchanged their 
first kiss. He drew her to him slowly, 
unbelievingly, and the utterness of her 
sweet self-surrender was almost terrifying 
as she leant against him, lips apart, and 
offered him a kiss that shook him to the 
final cell and fiber of his being. She 
groaned softly, as in pain, went flaccid in 
his arms, then tightened her arms round 
his shoulders, pulling his face down to 
hers, pressing against him until he felt 
the flutter of her heart as it beat edioes 
to the pounding of his pulses. 

A FTERWHILES they sat beneath the 
almond trees on a net of spangled 
shade, the coiling fronds of the new 
grasses cool against their hands. The deli- 
cate odor of the 4.1mond blossoms came to 
them, and the warm scent of fern-grass. 
Beneath its overtone of pink, with the ver- 
dure of the sward below, and the bright 
blue of anemones to punctuate it, the 
orchard might have been a fragment of the 
Magic Carpet of the Arab story-tellers, torn 
off and drifted here to light among the 
foothills of the Lebanons. 

At noon they rose to their knees and, 
hands joined piously, recited the sweet 
salutation of the angel to the Blessed 
Mother while the bells of half a hundred 


THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


79 


churches, and the chapels of the Templars 
and the Hospitalers and the covents of the 
nuns and friars rang the angelus. After- 
ward they broke their fast with pasties of 
spiced meat and comfits washed down with 
Cyprian wine, and washed their hands in 
a small brook that clattered over pebbles 
round and smooth as doves’ eggs. Then 
she must lave her white feet in the brook- 
let, and he must be her tiring-woman and 
her body-servant and dry them on the linen 
of his mantle, and claim a kiss from both 
her insteps for the service, and a mailed 
and bearded knight from the Hospital, as 
he rode by on his high black charger, 
smiled at them as he heard their laughter, 
then wiped a tear-drop from his eye. But 
he could not tell if he wept for them be- 
cause they were so young and inexperi- 
enced, or for himself, because he had 
neither youth nor illusions left. 

At last the soft blue dusk of early eve- 
ning settled in the valleys. 'They rose, 
and while he put the harness on the horses 
she watched him with love-brightened 
eyes. A lovely creature, this Sylvanette de 
Gavaret. Just turned sixteen, and lissome 
as a willow withe, she made each move- 
ment with a sort of lilting, questing eager- 
ness. There was lyric loveliness in every 
motion of her long and supple body, in the 
undulation of her narrow hips, the rondure 
of her high firm breasts. An Arab ances- 
tress had willed her the black hair that in 
some lights seemed to have an iridescence 
like a blackbird’s throat and the great dark 
eyes, soft and appealing as a gazelle’s, with 
something hesitant in their velvet depths. 
But the long, slim lines of her, the fair 
white skin through which a delicate tracery 
of blue veins showed and to which no sun, 
however ardent, could bring a touch of tan, 
were heritages of pure Norman blood. 
Brought up in Outremer, child of the 
mingled customs of the East and West, she 
dyed the almond-shaped nails of her hands 
and feet bright red with henna and em- 


phasized the depth and power of her great 
dark eyes by shadowing their lace-veined 
lids with kohl. 

The shimmer of her silken tunic was 
like the pale bloom of her skin, something 
that belonged to .her, and no one else, and 
the dark amethysts of her ear-rings, like 
the amaranthine jewels of her necklace and 
the great carved amethystine signet on her 
forefinger, seemed to echo the soft somber- 
ness that hid the inward glow of her 
fringed, plumbless eyes. 

She shuddered slightly, as if stricken 
with a sudden chill as he led up the bridled 
Arab barbs. "Art cold, my sweetling?” he 
asked with a lover’s solicitude. 

"Nay, love of mine,” she answered with 
a smile that brought the hidden fires of 
her deep eyes to sudden glowing. " ’Tis 
that I hate to say farewell to this dear spot. 
Would that we might be like this alway, 
have this one day frozen into an eternity.” 

He laughed and kissed her as he swung 
her to the saddle. " ’Tis but the dawning 
of our day of love, yah Shadjar ad Darr — 
O Pearl-Spray” — ^he used the Arabic love- 
term as naturally as if he had been born 
beneath the shadow of the Crescent. "As 
good Queen Balkis said to Solomon the 
Great, 'The half hath not been told thee.’ ” 

He broke into a snatch of song as they 
rode down the highway and dipped into 
the purple-shadowed valley: the romance 
of Bisclavret penned by Marie de France 
for the pleasuring of English Henry: 

"Bisclavret a nun en Brctan 
Gartilf Vapelent It Norman . . ." 

"The Bretons call it Bisclavret, 

In Normandy they say Garulf, in England 
werewolf ...” 

"Ah, no, my love, sing not that fright- 
ening ditty, I entreat thee!” Sylvanette 
signed herself fearfully and looked about 
her witli a shudder. "'The werewolf is a 
devil-creature to affright the hardiest, and 
we are far from home — ” 


80 


WEIRD TALES 


"O thou sweet small coward,” he 
laughed teasingly, "art thou truly frighted 
of the werewolf while I ride thus beside 
thee?” 

“Nay,” she answered with an echoing 
smile, "not truly. But the bisclavret 
affrights me sore. In all the host of Pan- 
demonium there is no monster like unto 
the werewolf, methinks. By’r Lakin, I 
chill from heart to skin at very mention of 
its name! I cannot bide a wolf-pelt nigh 
me, since it reminds me of the hateful 
loup-garou .[werewolf] 

T hey trotted through the vaulted portal 
of the tower-gate under echoing walls 
that picked up the sound of their horses’ 
hooves and hurled them back with thun- 
derous volume, and came into the street 
beyond. In the evening cool the city was 
astir. Beneath striped canopies of sail- 
cloth, Syrian merchants spread their stocks 
of rugs from Mosul, glass from Damascus, 
linen sewn with pearls from far Baghdad, 
jeweled saddle-cloths from Shamakha, 
carpets from Bokhara vivid as a hasheesh- 
eater’s dream. 

Upon the Square stood the Cathedral, 
first a church and then a mosque and now 
again a church, staunch with the trinity of 
its great oaken doors and Gothic strength, 
vivid with the glow of sanctus light and 
candle, calm now, and quiet, as if it 
dreamt of peace amid a world still echoing 
with the clash of arms and battle-cries and 
shuddering under rumors of new wars. 

Here she bade him leave her, for he 
must report at the citadel before the eve- 
ning angelus had rung, and afterward he 
must bespeak her father for her hand, 
while she would fain kneel at the altar of 
the good Saint Anne and ask her interven- 
tion when the landless knight besought the 
heiress of de Gavaret for wife. 

He looked back with a wave as she went 
up the steps, and she turned to him, white 
hands held out in farewell, eyes upraised 


and very wide. A sudden gust of evening 
breeze pressed her silk robe against her 
body, defining it as though it were a statue 
suddenly released from the rough marble, 
and she raised her hands and pressed them 
to her breast and leant herself toward him. 
With lips apart and ej'es tight closed, she 
leaned toward him, then turned and made 
her way with slow steps through the shad- 
owy ravine of the great door. At tlie 
threshold she stopped for a moment, 
wound her scarf of tabby silk turbanwise 
about her head, then tiptoed to the niche 
in the north transept where the altar of 
the blessed Anne of Bethlehem was set. 

The evening shadows had grown deeper 
when she emerged from the great church. 
Little feathers of dusk were drifting 
through the streets; a sort of brassy, unreal 
twilight filled the air. She tossed a groat 
to the small half-caste boy who held her 
horse, swung the barb around so she might 
mount the saddle from the horse-block at 
the curb, but paused with foot upraised as 
a little scream of almost human agony 
came to her. She looked about. Nowhere, 
either in the Square or in the streets 
debouching on it was there any sign of 
life. Then the scream came again, and 
she looked into the shadow cast by a 
buttress of the cathedral wall and saw a 
filthy, ragged figure squatting. 

Bridle looped in elbow, she approached 
the crouching form. It was a woman, 
brown of face and wrinkled as a frosted 
apple. Her cloak was patched and quilted 
with a dozen different-colored scraps of 
rag, and round her neck and on her filthy, 
scrawny hands were ornaments of tarnished 
metal. Between her knees she held a 
writhing, quivering jackdaw at which she 
mouthed with toothless gums. 

"What saith my lord the Count, thou 
imp of Satan?” she demanded. "Did not 
I send thee to his tower to overhear his 
counsel with the Master of the Templars? 
Tell me that which passed between them. 


THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


81 


or by Barran-Sathanas I’ll pluck thee bare 
as any pigeon ready for the pastry-cook!” 

"Let be!” Sylvanette commanded very 
sharply. "How darest thou, in the very 
shadow of God’s house — ” 

Her brave words slackened, faltered, for 
the old crone raised her wrinkle-puckered 
face and looked at her with fixed, 
set, staring eyes, void of expression as if 
they were set in a corpse’s face. Yet in 
the dark they seemed somehow to glow 
with inward phosphorescence, like the pale 
light given off by long-dead things that 
rot in swamps and quagmires. 

"And who are thou to give directions 
to thy betters, wench?” the crone de- 
manded. "Pass on, or feel the vengeance 
of La Crainte — ” 

"Wench?” Fury drove all fear from 
Sylvanette. "Thou darest call me wench, 
thou foul harpy?” She brought her riding- 
whip down on the rag-patched shoulders 
of the crouching hag. "That for thy in- 
solence! Unloose yon poor bird instantly, 
or — ” 

Once more her voice failed, for the old 
woman was addressing her in a low, 
squeaky whisper: "How long wilt thou 
continue in the form of woman, wretched 
creature?” She rose, drew a flask from her 
girdle and from it poured a little liquor in 
the palm of her cupped hand. "Take the 
form I give thee” — she hurled the liquid 
into Sylvanette’s face — "and retain it till” 
— she rose and brought her withered, 
wrinkled lips against Sylvanette’s ear, 
whispered something in a tittering, mali- 
cious breath, then slapped the girl on both 
cheeks with her open hand. 

T he liquor the old hag had thrown in 
her face stung like vitriol, scalding 
Sylvanette on brow and cheek and chin. 
The fire of it seemed spreading through 
her veins until she felt as if she were 
bound to the stake with blazing faggots 
heaped about her. The world was spin- 


ning crazily on a loose axis; time stopped, 
and breathing with it. She was gasping, 
choking, dying. She dropped upon her 
knees, then to her liands. The scarf 
wound round her head fell uncoiled to 
the pavement; her gown and shoes and 
gauntlets hung and flapped about her. An 
itching, tingling and unendurable as nettle- 
stings, spread over her entire body. Her 
eyes stung so she could not wink without 
sharp, stabbing pains in them. She raised 
a hand to soothe her smarting lids. . . . 
O, mercy, heaven! No hand, this, but a 
broad furry paw, long-nailed and terrible 
— a wolf’s foot! 

She screamed in horror and dismay. 
"Woo-hoo-oo-oo-hoo!” Deep - throated, 
rising in a slow crescendo, then sinking 
from a howl to wail, and from a wail to 
a low moan, the ululation of a wolf’s bay 
sounded eerily, and from every kennel in 
the city came an answering chorus, yelps, 
growls, barks of dogs which answered the 
long howl with fear or fury. 

"Begone!” The witch spumed her. 
"Go seek thy kind, and” — a high, cmel, 
cackling laugh — "remember how thou 
mayest find release!” 

Panic seized her. Home! She must get 
home, see the good Pere Botron, have this 
foul witchery taken off with bell and book 
and holy water. With long, swift, silent 
leaps she raced along the darkling street, 
but somehow the quick summer darkness 
which had settled on the city seemed less 
dense. The horologe had struck the sun- 
set hour long since, lights were glowing 
in the windows of the houses, here and 
there a cresset burned against a wall; but 
the darkness seemed no more than a deep 
twilight as she loped with long, swift, 
space-devouring leaps toward the Chateau 
Gavaret. 

She was almost at the portal now. At 
the gate stood Guilhen, sergeant of the 
watch, leaning on his partizan, gazing with 
indifferent eyes at a cat that stalked imag 


82 


WEIRD TALES 


in^ mice in the shadows. She made to- 
ward him as to a shelter in a tempest. 
"Guilhen^ old fellow, it is I!” she at- 
tempted to cry, but; 

“W oo-hoo-oo-OQ-hool” a wolf’s howl 
split the gathering darkness. 

"Saint Mary’s mercy on all sinners!’’ 
Guilhen almost let fall his partizan at 
sight of the great beast that rushed toward 
him. Almost, but not quite. In a moment 
he had gathered ba^ his wits and aimed 
a devastating blow at the brute. "Wolf 
or demon, natural creature or bhclavret, 
have at thee!” he shouted. Then, to tlie 
guard within the chateau: "Ho, there, a 
wolf runs in the streets! Bring bows to 
shoot it down!” 

"Guilhen, Guilhen, ’tis I, the Lady Syl- 
vanette ensorcelled by foul witchcraft!” die 
wretched girl screamed, but only horrid 
growls and marrow-chilling howls came 
from her mouth. 

Now a twanging like a plucked harp- 
string sounded, and an arrow clipped 
against the pavement by her feet, and a 
quarrel from a crossbow struck fire from 
die paving-stones behind her. 

She turned and ran for dear life, for the 
guard was turning out, and the arrows 
screamed and whistled past her ears lilce 
hornets when their nest is disturbed. 

Through the streets she ran, the clicking 
of her nails against the paving-flints in 
time with the wild beating of her heart. 
Now she was at the gate of Saint George. 
'The great valves had been closed but the 
postern still swung open to admit late 
travelers. 

"Ho, there!” a porter cried. "A wolf 
comes; close the gate, ’twill yield a noble 
pelt!” 

He seized the chain to draw the postern 
shut, but like a driven arrow she sped past 
him, out upon the moon-washed highway 
toward the foothills of the Lebanons 
whence two hours earlier she and Gaussin 
had ridden. 


Panic raced beside her and fear ran at 
her heels as she swept along the road until 
she readied the orchard-plot where she 
and Gaussin had exchanged their vows. 
There she sank whimpering on the grass, 
her sides expanding and contracting with 
her tortured breathing. Her throat was 
burning, parched and dry with dust. She 
rose wearily and went to the brook where 
she had waded after noonday meat. The 
moon shone on a little pool of still water 
as she bent thirstily above it, and she 
shrank back, sick with fright and horror. 
In the. mirror of the brooklet she had seen 
herself — ^her broad face gray-furred, eyes 
green and glowing in the moonlight, white 
fangs agleam, long pink tongue lolling 
from a black-lipped mouth. 

In bitterness and agony of spirit she 
wept, and the long-drawn, eery belling of 
a wolf’s howl sounded through the night: 
" Woo-hoo-oo-oo-hoo!” 

G aussin DE SOLLIES was making a 
meticulously careful toilet. In almost 
feverish haste he replaced the woolen hose 
and doublet wdtli silk garments, and in 
place of the white linen surtout drew a 
mantle of fine damask brocade over his 
small-clothes. 

He buckled a gold-studded belt about 
his waist and lashed a light curved cimeter 
to it with a gold chain. Finally he dashed 
rose water upon his hair and beard and 
clapped a velvet cap upon his curling red- 
gold hair. 

He w'as asking much when he demanded 
Sylvanette de Gavaret for wife, he realized, 
but as he looked into tee Byzantine mirror 
of polished silver he knew that he had 
much to offer. 

Not in lands and gear — the good Lord 
knew otherwise! — but in person, and cer- 
tainly in prospects. He had traveled far 
and fast. While most youths of his age 
were still serving as squires, he had worn 
the golden spurs of knighthood almost 


.THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


83 


four years, and yet he had just passed his 
twenty-second birthday. 

Godson — some said love-child — of the 
Bishop Gilles de Saucier, he had been 
reared in the episcopal palace at Tyre, 
learning all one destined for the church 
should know, and many things a cleric had 
no right to think of. In his fourteenth 
year his patron died, but he had made good 
friends who saw him\ placed in service 
with the Warden of Antioch, where he 
straightway left all thoughts of rob^e and 
tonsure and addressed himself so aptly to 
the arts of war that before he reached his 
sixteenth year he had been made a captain, 
and in his eighteentli summer had won 
knighthood for bravery in the field. Two 
years’ captivity in Cairo had made him 
well-nigh as familiar with the Paynim 
soldiery as his own, and despite his youth 
he was as w'elcome at the council table as 
he was at the head of his troop of mounted 
men-at-arms. Red-haired, blue-eyed and 
ruddy-faced, he was' pure Norman to his 
fingertips, but Norman overlaid with East- 
tern culture, and with his forthright Frank- 
ish nature tempered and diluted with a 
subtlety that came from long association 
with the Greek and Arab. A man who 
had come far in a short time and would go 
farther, this; no maiden’s father need re- 
proach him for his lack of lands, those 
would surely come with ripening age, "and 
meantime he could offer youth and strength 
and ardent love. 

He w'ent forth seeking no one-sided 
bargain, he assured himself as he mounted 
and rode leisurely toward the Chateau 
Gavaret and his interview with his be- 
loved’s sire. 

H ilaire de gavaret. Lord Con- 
stable of Acre, sat at late meat upon 
the terrace outside the square keep of his 
walled house. The Galilean moon-en- 
crusted rooftops of the lower houses and 
the spires and turrets of the greater build- 


ings with a coat of silver; a slim, soft- 
footed page renewed the red Greek wine 
in his cup; impassive Syrians held their 
torches high and washed the terrace with 
a flow of orange light that veiled the 
stars. Hilaire drank deeply, but not 
thirstily. Rather, his drafts were like those 
of a man who seeks to drown his appre- 
hension. At dining-time he had been 
startled by the howling of a wolf outside 
the house, and wolves in a walled city were 
as rare as monks who liked not victuals or 
soldiers who cared naught for loot. At 
first he had been sure his ears deceived 
him, but when the sergeant of the watch 
assured him that he saw the beast and that 
it tried to force an entrance to the house 
he felt a chill of apprehension. 

When Sylvanette was but a babe in arms 
an Arab sand-diviner had foretold that ere 
she reached the full bloom of her woman- 
hood some great misfortune would befall 
her, and the wolf’s cry at his door seemed 
like an omen. Thrice he had sent a mes- 
senger to his daughter’s bower. Three 
times the word brought back had been 
the same. 

She had ridden to the foothills of 
the Lebanons with a company of young 
companions, and had not yet returned. 
Who had been her saddlemates? Her 
tiring-women could not say, but they be- 
lieved young Gaussin de Sollies was one. 
Small wonder if he was. The lad was like 
Sylvanette’s shadow. Presently he would 
come suing for her hand, belike, and Sire 
Hilaire would inquire what he had to feed 
a wife withal, how he proposed to equip a 
house and provide bread and meat for re- 
tainers. Then with a show of great re- 
luctance he would yield, and give them 
his blessing, for Sylvanette’s dowry was 
enough for two, and he was widowed and 
without another heir. By the blood and 
bones of good Messire Saint James, he 
liked the lad, and — 

"My Lord,’’ a Syrian servant b-owed 


84 


WEIRD TALES 


with deference at his elbow, "young Cap- 
tain de Sollies begs for admission — ” 

"Bid him come, and quickly,” inter- 
rupted Sire Hilaire. "By sainted Denis’ 
sainted head, ’tis time he brought my 
daughter home! 

"Hola, good Messer Jackanapes,” he 
greeted Gaussin as the young knight 
stepped out on the terrace, "what ill wind 
blows thee hither? Or belike it is a good 
breeze wafts thee here, and thou art come 
to tell me that thou leavest for Antioch or 
Tyre or Constantinople. The blessed saints 
in Paradise grant tliat it be a right good 
distance — ” While he was speaking he 
looked toward the doorway to the house, 
made sure he saw the flutter of a gown, 
and smiled more broadly. 

So that way lay the wind, eh? The 
w'ench was hovering in the offing wliile 
her lover made his request for her hand? 
Now for the aspect of a stern, uncompro- 
mising sire! He choked a diuckle rising 
from his belly and put on a fierce look. 
"What would’st with me, sirrah?” 

"It is about thy daughter, Messirc,” 
Gaussin replied nervously. "I am come 
to — ” 

"My daughter, quotlia? And where is 
she? Report has come that tliou rode off 
with her this morning while the dew still 
sparkled on the grass. Say, hast thou 
brought her back unharmed?” 

The blank expression on tlie young 
man’s face brought his mock-bluster to a 
halt. 

Gaussin was looking at him open- 
mouthed, something like dawning terror 
in his eyes. The muscles tightened at the 
angles of his jaw, his fingers clenched the 
carved arms of his chair as if they clung 
in desperation to a tower parapet. "She — 
she is not here?” Fear, consternation — 
utter panic — forced the question from him. 

For a moment tliey stared at each other, 
young knight and old campaigner: Their 
eyes met and notliing moved in their faces. 


It was as if eacli looked at a graven image 
incapable of looking back. 

At lengtli Sire Hilaire licked his lips 
and spoke in a voice hard and raucous as 
the sound of ripping parchment. “Say’st 
thou that she rode out with thee and thou 
hast dared return without her?” 

Gaussin looked at him helplessly. He 
had left her at tire cathedral before the 
sun went down. The streets were well 
patrolled by men from his own provost 
guard; besides, who would dare offer 
affront to the daughter of the Lord Gjn- 
stable? But he had left her — alone — to 
make her way unguarded and without 
escort through the darkling evening. True, 
she had wished it so, but he was a knight, 
sworn by oath unbreakable to guard all 
gentlewomen placed in his care until the 
sword fell from his unnerved hand. 

"Messire,” he began, but the Lord Con- 
stable’s bellow drowned his faltering ex- 
planation. 

"By holy Michael his most puissant 
lance, thou callest thyself knight, thou cur, 
thou scurvy knave, thou false poltroon!” 
His ruddiness gave way to a gray pallor 
as he leveled a taut forefinger at Gaussin. 
"Report thyself in close arrest to tlie Lord 
Provost, sirrali. Tomorrow I lodge my 
complaint before the Court of Chivalry — 
the good God grant me life until I see 
thy name struck from the roll of true sir 
knights!” 

A LL night Gaussin paced his quarters. 

Hour after hour he walked a frus- 
trated diamond-shaped pattern on the 
black and white marble tiles. Inside his 
ears, as if it echoed from his broken, empty 
heart a cry reverberated: "Sylvanette!” 

Only this morning — or had it been a 
thousand years ago? — they were so happy 
in their new-found love. Now . , . "Sylva- 
nette— Sylvanette!” the syllables of her 
name reproached him, mocked him. Once, 
exhausted past endurance, he threw him- 


THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


85 


self upon his couch, but scarcely had he 
closed his eyes when he rose with a dread- 
ful cry. For at the moment sleep came, 
there came a troop of phantoms, men 
bedight in knightly armor, but with crests 
reversed upon their shields, and when they 
put their vizors up skull-faces grinned at 
him from their helmets. "Rise, Gaussin 
de Sollies,” they bid him in deep, hollow 
voices, "rise and join our company, for we, 
like thee, were recreant to our chivalry, 
and now thou art become as one of us.” 

Then from a cave of blazing pitch and 
brimstone, demons brought a helmet glow- 
ing fiery red, a lance of poison thorn- 
wood and a shield of rag stretched on a 
frame of willow. "Dress thyself in the 
armor of thy infamy, O forsworn knight!” 
cried the capering host of fiends. "Put on 
the panoply of degradation; ride the lists 
of infamy!” 

"Mercy!” he screamed as they made to 
put the glowing helmet on his head. "Is 
there no hope, no relief?” 

"Aye, brother of the damned,” a skele- 
ton in armor answered, "that there is. 
When thou hast fought thy way across this 
fiery plain and conquered every foe sent 
out against thee, then climbed the wall of 
smooth and slippery ice that hems the field 
of the lost spirits, thou shalt find surcease 
from thy sufferings, not before. And mark 
thee, recreant knight, each time a foeman 
overthrows thee in the lists another thou- 
sand years is added to thy period of tor- 
ment.” 

He wakened bathed in sweat and gazed 
about him with eyes glazed with horror. 
Then, as he realized he had dreamed, the 
furious beating of his heart subsided, and 
once' more he began his pacing back and 
forth across the floor. 

Dawn came seeping into the gray murk 
of the sky like blood welling through a 
soiled bandage. From cathedral, church 
and chapel came the chiming matins of 
the bells: 


"Hail, Mary, full of grace, 

Blessed art thou among women . . .'* 

TTE WAS weak with weakness greater 
than mere bodily fatigue when they 
brought him forth to stand before the 
Masters in Chivalry and hear the cliarge 
Sir Hilaire lodged against him. His com- 
panions of the day before were summoned 
to bear witness, and one and all th^ testi- 
fied, all to the same effect: That he had 
ridden forth with them and with the 
damoselle Sylvanette de Gavaret; that he 
and she had dropped behind when they 
were scarce an hour’s ride beyond the city; 
that none of them from that moment had 
seen or heard of Sylvanette de Gavaret, 
and might the Lord do so to them, and 
more, if they spoke aught but the truth, 
and the whole truth. 

Defense? What defense could he offer? 
That he had let the wilful maid have her 
way, permitted her to tarry at the cathedral 
while lie rode off to leave her to her own 
devices, and make her way imguarded 
through the night-bound streets? A half- 
wit three-year child would not believe a 
story such as that. 

The judge advocate advised him. He 
could not be degraded without a trial if 
he chose to stand upon his rights. He 
might have trial by ordeal, swear to his 
innocence and take the exorcized bread in 
his mouth. If he could swallow it his 
guiltlessness would be assumed. Or he 
might have recourse to compurgation, 
bring twelve good men and true to swear 
that they believed him innocent. He might 
have ordeal by combat, and battle with 
de Gavaret’s champion to the death. 
Which would he choose? 

He looked about the circling lines of 
knights and ladies. No eye in all the 
throng looked at him with aught but scorn. 
No hope of compurgation there. He was 
already condemned by the audience. 

Wager of battle? He could scarcely 


86 


■WEIRD TALES 


keep upon his feet, and the cold he had 
caught as he stood bathed in sweat while 
he looked from his window yesternight 
had sent an enervating fever racing tluough 
his blood. In combat he would be no 
match for Beppo, the Lord Provost’s 
dwarf, much less a champion armed cap-a- 
pie and lusting to write Guilty on him 
with the sword. 

"I clioose the ordeal by the corsned,” he 
replied. Heaven knew that he was inno- 
cent of wilful wrong, he would have given 
his blood drop by tortured drop for Sylva- 
nette. Let heaven witness to his innocence. 

'The corsned, a small loaf of leavened 
bread about the size of a man’s fist, v/as 
brought, and while a kitchen villein 
kneaded and compressed it till it bulked 
but half its former size the bishop’s cliap- 
lain exorcized it by tlie ancient rite: "I 
exorcize thee, creature of wheat, may no 
evil spirit lurk in thee to aid the guilty 
with his wiles . . . may the power of the 
adversary, all the host of Satan, all evil 
attack, every spirit and glamour of tlie 
Devil be utterly put to flight, and driven 
far away. 

Wine was poured upon the compressed, 
unpalatable bolus, and Gaussin raised his 
hand. “Heaven witness I am guiltless of 
this charge against me. If it be not so may 
this bread lodge in my throat and strangle 
me, but if I be unjustly accused may I 
swallow it as featly as it were a sup of 
wine, and may it nourish both my corse 
and my spirit.’’ 

The chaplain thrust the kneaded dough 
into his opened mouth, and he strained at 
it, for to bite or chew it was forbidden. 
For purposes of swallowing it might almost 
as well have been a stone, but even so he 
might have forced it down had it not been 
for the cold caught the night before. With 
his throat stopped by the compact mass of 
bread he felt the sudden tightening of the 
pectoral muscles which precedes a cough, 
strove desperately to swallow, and bent 


foru'ard suddenly, face suffused and shoul- 
ders heaving. Next instant he shook with 
the torsion of a cough, threw back his head 
in effort to get breath, and shot the wad 
of compressed bread from his mouth like 
a quarrel from a crossbow. Heaven had 
given judgment. He was guilty. 

Sentence was pronounced immediately: 
That his name and arms be erased from 
tlie roll of knighthood; that his golden 
spurs be hacked off with a scullion’s 
cleaver; that his armor be stripped from 
him and beaten to a shapeless mass with 
sledges in the hands of villeins; that his 
sword and lance be broken into pieces and 
with his knightly harness tossed upon a 
dung heap, and the shield that bore his 
crest be dragged through the muck of a 
pig-sty at an ass’s tail; that the embrocation 
of knighthood be washed from his head 
with lye and scalding water, after which 
he should be stretched upon a bier and 
carried to the chapel as one dead. If upon 
the morrow he were found within the city 
walls he should be pelted with manure 
from the stables by villeins. 

As he heard the dreadful sentence of 
his degradation Gaussin trembled lilce a 
man with ague; then, eyes ablaze with 
fever and indignation, “Messires, it was no 
will of heaven, but my cough that made 
me fail the ordeal, as you know full well,” 
he told them. “Nevertlieless, when a man 
is foredoomed he can look for little justice 
from his judges. My arms and gear are 
in my quarters. Do with them as thou 
wilt, but by’r Lakin, the first man to lay 
hand on me, be he of noble blood or 
villein base, goes straightway down to hell 
to tell the Devil of my coming!” he roared, 
and leaping tiger-like snatched a sword 
from a sergeant and swung it naked in 
their faces. 

, None hindered him as he walked from 
the council chamber, none sought to stop 
liim as he marched with flaming chee^ 
and blazing eyes aaoss the parade ground 


THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


87 


and to the city gate. The guardsmen at 
the portal forbore to salute him, for the 
rumor of his degradation had preceded 
him, but neither did they move to bar his 
way. And so, unlet, he came once more 
upon the highv/ay to Tiberius where yester- 
eve he and his dear, dear love had ridden 
with hearts overfilled with happiness. 

Once only he looked back, and saw the 
grinning lackeys of the guard regarding 
him. Ceremoniously he raised first one 
foot, then the other, shaking from them 
the dust of the city. 

T^OR thirty days Gaussin held to the 
highway, going ever northward, past 
Tyre and Beirut, Antioch and Tarsus, 
keeping from the walled towns, sleeping 
in the little villages along the way, or at 
the farmsteads bordering the road. For- 
tunately for him there had been some 
silver and a few gold pieces in the pocket 
hanging at his belt; so he lacked for noth- 
ing in the way of food or shelter, and once 
or twice he was enabled to increase his 
rate of travel by hiring transportation with 
a wagon train or caravan which headed 
toward Taurus and the Armenian states. 

He had started without destination or 
purpose other than to put as much distance 
as possible between him and the city of 
his humiliation. Of those who travel thus, 
without intention, the Moslems say they 
journey toward God’s gate, and so it 
proved for Gaussin. A month had passed, 
and he was in the country of the atabegs, 
the petty war lords of Edessa whose castles 
looked down on the red wheat fields and 
who sallied out to take their toll of passing 
merchant trains. The night he had spent 
in a cedar copse, for the caravansaries of 
the few wretched villages which grew like 
fungi on the ruinous remains of the old 
Roman road swarmed with vermin of 
prodigious appetite and thieves and cut- 
purses no less predatory. The changing 
light before the dawn was brightening 


nearby trees and rocks and distant crenel- 
lated hills into sharp definition as Gaussin 
sat up with a great yawn, stretched his 
arms and dropped back on his couch of 
leaves. Then, all the luxury of languor 
gone from him, he crouched on one knee, 
sword in readiness, eyes narrowed w'arily. 
The crash of steel on steel, the hoarse 
shouts of contending men and the thud- 
ding of mailed feet came to him from 
the road. 

Cautiously parting the branches he saw 
the combatants, one in lacquered armor 
who stood almost two ells tall and grasped 
a great sword in his hand and hewed a 
circle round him as if he were a scytheman 
standing in a field of growing grain; three 
men accoutered similarly lay face down- 
ward in the road, while round them surged 
a horde of Terkaris, lean, rapacious riders 
of the uplands, link-mailed and cimetered, 
retainers of some neighboring alabeg who 
had attacked these outlanders for loot, but 
now fought savagely for revenge for their 
losses. Across the stony field a herd of 
horses galloped riderless. Apparently the 
attackers had dismounted to creep upon 
their prey in silence, but had been dis- 
covered before they could strike. 

Gaussin shrugged his shoulders. Let 
them fight it to the death. It was the 
Devil’s business, not his. What had he 
to do with chivalry, or helping those beset 
by robbers? But the logic of his Gallic 
mind proved stronger than his bitterness. 
The robbers still were six to one, and 
though the giant fended them off mightily 
the result of the fight was forecast. If 
he were found by the victorious Terkaris 
while their blood-lust still ran at flood- 
tide ... he was unmounted and without 
armor, and while he had no reason to love 
life there was no call to w'oo death need- 
lessly. Besides, perhaps they would not 
kill him, but take him to the castle to be 
made a slave ... to draw w'ater and hew 
w'ood for some barbarous atabeg. 


S8 


WEIRD TALES 


"God wills it!” he raised tlie Crusaders’ 
battle-cry and dashed from his ambush 
with sword in one hand, dagger in the 
other. 

Gaussin had had the best instruction in 
weaponry procurable, and it w'as well for 
him he had, for two of the robbers turned 
on him, and as he looked into their faces 
he knew tliem for hasheesh-eaters ren- 
dered fearless by tlie drug, and fierce as 
hungry' tigers. No followers of some small 
atabeg these, but jedawi of the Shaikh al 
Jebal, half-crazed followers of the Old 
Man of the Mountain. Broidered on their 
v/hite surtouts he saw tlie crimson dagger 
of tlieir lord and master, and with a quickly 
indrawn breath he realized that the fight 
he undertook was to the death, both now 
and afterward; for if he prevailed now he 
was a marked man, and the daggers of the 
secret killers would be whetted for his 
heart wherever he might go. 

This thought flaslied tlirough his mind 
like a reflex, and then tliere was no time 
for thought, for swords were flashing in 
his eyes and he must kill or be killed. 
With a tremendous down-stroke he hewed 
the sword-hand off the nearest foeman, 
and as the fellow staggered back drove his 
dagger beneath his pointed beard, so that 
the fellow dropped with a startled sheep- 
like bleat while his companion leaped at 
Gaussin. 

With a backstroke of his two-edged 
sword the young knight slashed across his 
adversary’s eyes, hewing through the flesh 
and skull and into the brain, and wheeling 
drove his dagger straight into the teeth of 
a third hemp-cliewer who had tripped 
upon the body of his comrade and so 
missed the stroke which he had aimed at 
Gaussin’s heart. 

Meantime the beset giant swung his 
flailing bloody blade, chopped an arm 
from one attacker, lopped the head off of 
another neatly as a scullion beheads a. fowl, 
and dropping his brand leaped upon the 


one remaining Assassin, raised him high 
above his head and hurled him to the 
roadway with sucli force that his bones 
cracked like breaking pots. 

Now they looked at each otlicr, Gaussin 
and the sole survdvor of the beset party, 
and Gaussin drew his breath in as he rec- 
ognized the other. He had seen such men 
as this — though not of such great stature — 
during his captivity in Cairo. For all tlie 
butter-color of his skin the giant was of 
ruddy countenance, his eyes were sharply 
slanted toward the outer corners, and his 
mustache drooped in two long plaited 
braids. He was dressed in armor of black 
lacquer ornamented with designs in golden 
damascene. The leather helmet on his 
head was pot-shaped and from its top a 
horse-tail trailed. Upon his feet were felt 
boots with soles at least two indies thick, 
the sword he held was long as a Crusader’s 
blade but curved and double-edged, and 
fitted with a cross-guard almost a foot 
long. A Mongol, one of those fierce 
riders from High Tartary who periodically 
swept from their deserts to overrun the 
lowlands, take w'hatever might be new 
and precious, then drift back to their north- 
ern steppes, leaving desolation in their 
wake. What was he doing here? 

T he giant addressed him in fair Arabic. 

"My thanks to thee, most noble Frank, 
for that thou earnest when tliou did. 
What art thou called, and where is thy 
retinue? If thou wilt call them to tliee I 
shall be glad to take thee to the tent of 
my commander, who will requite thee for 
thy courtesy.” 

Gaussin laughed. A short, hard, cachin- 
nating laugh containing neither gayety nor 
humor. "One name will serve as well as 
any for such as I. As for my retinue, I 
stand surrounded by it. Tliese be my 
followers, the winds, the rains, the tem- 
pests, the jackals and the carrion-crows 
that haunt deserted battlefields.” 


THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


89 


The giant Tartar looked at him inquir- 
ingly, and, glad at last to have an auditor, 
Gaussin poured out the story of his lost 
love, his trial and his degradation. If his 
tale affected the great Mongol he could not 
tell, for the yellow ruddy features were 
impassive, the eyes void of expression till 
he had finished. Then: 

"A fool thou wert, but no knave,” the 
giant decided. "Also I have seen thy 
swordplay, and it likes me. Dost know 
the country hereabout?” 

“Like the lines of mine own hand.” 

"Good. Would’st take service with him 
who rules the earth?” 

“Tliou mean’st the Holy Father at 
Rome?” 

"I mean the Kha Khan of the world, 
whose empire stretches from the Carpa- 
thians to Cathay. Captive princes bow 
their foreheads to the dust before him, ten 
times a hundred caravans bring him tribute 
every day, ten times a hundred thousand 
mighty men of war wait on his word.” 

"Why, then, this puissant lord of thine 
is just the master I would serve,” replied 
Gaussin. If what the Mongol said were 
true, or even partly true, there would be 
fighting in this army, and loot, and glory, 
and a chance to make a new name for 
himself. 

So to the north and east they rode upon 
two horses retrieved from the scattered 
herd, and when they came at last to the 
great Mongol camp Gaussin’s eyes were 
like to pop from his head at the wonders 
they beheld. 

The camp was circular in form with 
streets running in a series of concentric 
circles round a hub composed of a great 
hemispherical pavilion of black felt. It 
spread across a plain at least two miles 
square, yet it was closely crowded with 
men and horses and the gear of war. 
Besides the horses there were oxen, trains 
of camels, flocks of fat-tailed sheep. The 
soldiers of the Great Khan seemed as nu- 


merous as sands upon the seashore, slim, 
high-shouldered men in armor of black 
lacquered leather or link-mail, with hel- 
mets shaped like pots, their long hair 
braided and their lips adorned with long, 
fierce, drooping mustaches. Each wore a 
long curved sword against his thigh, at 
every back there was a short horn bow 
with a quiverful of arrows. Most carried 
long* light lances tipped with steel and 
targets of bullhide tWckly studded with 
brass bosses. The ofiicers sat on saddles 
rich with cloth of gold, their cloaks were 
sable or gray wolfskin, silver weighed 
their bridles, and the hilts of their swords 
flashed with precious stones. On ox-carts 
were the mighty siege engines, mangonels 
and trebuchets, battering-rams and scaling- 
towers made in sections ready to be put 
together at a moment’s notice, and giant 
cranes from whose arms swung monstrous 
claws of iron capable of seizing stones in 
castle walls and plucking them away as a 
man might drag a weed up by the roots. 
There were even clumsy mortars to throw 
bombs of gunpowder, and a regiment of 
Chinese engineers to serve them. 

Gaussin made quick calculation. The 
host could hardly number less than three- 
score thousand men, he figured, but when 
he spoke of it to his conductor the giant 
laughed. 'This was but an outpost of the 
vanguard. The main force was encamped 
at Gaghdad where the walls had been torn 
down stone by stone, the city sacked and 
the calif smothered imder carpets. The 
young knight trembled as he listened. 
Baghdad the mighty had been overthrown, 
its calif killed. These were not men, but 
devils. 

In the carpeted pavilion of the Tura 
{general} in command of the encamp- 
ment Gaussin made supreme obeisance in 
the manner of the Tartars, dropping to his 
knees and bending till his forehead touched 
the rug of leopardskin spread before the 
general’s divan: "My life between thy 


90 


WEIRD TALES 


hands, O mighty one.” Then while he 
squatted cross-legged on a pillow his con- 
ductor told how he had fought the Assas- 
sins, praising his sldll with the sword and 
his courage, and ending with the declara- 
ticm that be begged leave to join the Great 
Khan’s army. 

So it was arranged. Gaussin was re- 
named Mangoli and put in command of a 
troop of Uigar— named Christian — horse- 
men. He was given boots of heavy felt, 
a shirt of Persian chain-mail with a cuirass 
of black lacquered leather damascened witli 
gold. Double plates of leather reinforced 
with iron bands flared on his shoulders; 
in his waist-shawl he wore two. swords, 
one a long curved battle blade, one a 
straight-ed^d Persian weapon. His hel- 
met was a hemisphere of lacquered leather 
with a flaring lobster-tail to guard his 
neck, and on its top was set a horse’s tail 
for crest. He- shaved the short beard from 
his chin and let his mustache grow until it 
drooped in twin braids from the corners 
of his mouth. Gaussin de SoUies, godson 
of a bishop and degraded knight of Acre, 
was no more. In his place rode Mangoli, 
captain in the horde of the Kha Khan, 
lord of all the lands between the plains 
of Poland and Korea. 

L ike the mighty car of Juggernaut the 
Mongol horde proceeded, and the 
nunble of their hoofbeats was like earth- 
shaking thunder, the beating of thek 
kettle-drums was maddening. There was 
magic and insistence and terror in the 
throbbing of the booming hollow tones of 
the taut skins. The peoples of the earth 
heard it and were afraid. The sultan of 
Mosul made his submission, Haython, king 
of Armenia, bowed the knee and offered 
tribute. Bohemund, the Christian prince 
of Antioch, sent ambassadors with gifts 
and assumed vassalage. Cairo heard the 
rumble of the distant battle-drums and 
trembled. 


Gaussin acquired merit in the eyes of 
his commander. His knowledge of lan- 
guages and the customs of the people made 
him valuable as an ambassador, his cour- 
age in the field won approbation. Within 
tu'o months he had been given command 
of a regiment of hawk-nosed Turcomans 
who went to battle as to a feast, had his 
own standard of two horse-tails borne be- 
fore him, and five kettle-drummers to an- 
nounce his presence when he rode before 
his cavalry at parade. When the war 
council was called and tlie Tura and his 
colonels drank fermented mare’s milk 
from the silver-plated skulls of dead 
enemies he was always among those pres- 
ent. Often he remained as guest of the 
general and played chess until the false 
dawn brightened in the sky. 

One night the Tura paused as he ad- 
vanced his queen’s Icnight, looking at 
Gaussin with one of his rare smiles. "Me- 
thinks I have an embassy for thee, my 
Mangoli,” he announced. 

“Hearing and obeying, O Magnifi- 
cence,” responded Gaussin as military 
etiquette required. “Thy wishes are thy 
slave’s desires. Where would’st that I 
should go?” 

“To the castle of the Shaikh al Jebal 
at Alamut.” 

"The stronghold of the Old Man of the 
Mountain?” Gaussin almost gasped. Many 
had gone through the portal of that place 
of terror, but those who came back had 
been few as those who returned from the 
grave. 

“In sooth. These thrice-accurst ones 
have seen fit to attempt to levy tribute on 
us. ’Tis time they learned the Kha Khan 
takes but does not give. You ride for 
Alamut with the dawn and bear our sum- 
mons to surrender to the Master of the 
Assassins. Go boldly and fear not. The 
might of the Great Khan goes with thee.” 

Qad in his armor of black lacquer, 
Gaussin stood before the Shaikh al 


THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


91 


Jebal, Grand Master of the Assassins. For 
ten days he had ridden with an escort of 
four Kirghiz horsemen, one of whom bore 
the Kha Klian’s long blue banner that all 
might know he traveled on official busi- 
ness, and relays of fresh horses waited them 
at every stopping-place. At the foot of 
the tall peak on which the castle of the 
Shaikh stood, his escort was commanded to 
await his return, while he was led up a 
long spiral causeway to the very heart of 
the Assassins’ spider-w'eb. 

Despite the realization that he had am- 
bassadorial immunity, Gaussin shuddered 
as he gazed upon the Shaikli al Jebal, 
Lord of Death. 

Surrounded by a group of giant guards- 
men stood a dais of gilded sandalwood, 
and on it was a huge black cushion filled 
with some soft wadding. In this a man 
sank till he seemed almost enveloped in 
its sable folds. He was a little man, hardly 
more than a dwarf, but the head that 
topped his narrow shoulders was enor- 
mous, and its size was magnified by the 
huge turban that he wore. All black, the 
monstrous pillow, the robe of him who 
sat upon it, the turban wound about his 
head. But his face was pasty-pale, and 
from it looked a pair of hot, dry, glittering 
eyes unchanging in expression, unwinking 
in their fixed, set stare as those of some 
great snake. 

The creatures of his court fawned on 
the Master of the Assassins, but Gaussin 
neither bowed nor bent the knee. He was 
the emissary of the Kha Khan, ruler of 
the world from Krakow to Cathay. 

"What petition dost thou make to Sinan, 
the Shaikh al Jebal, Lord of Death, O her- 
ald of the Barbarians?” asked a chamber- 
lain. 

Then Gaussin answ'ered, keeping bold 
eyes leveled on the gnome-like creature 
squatting on the sable cushion: "Thus 
saith the Kha Khan, ruler of the earth — 
fling open wide thy gates and submit. If 


thou dost, this peace shall be granted thee. 
If thou dost otherwise, that will happen 
which will happen, and what it is to be we 
know not. The Lord of Heaven only 
knows. I have spoken.” 

Silence utter and abysmal as the stillness 
in the craters of a long-dead world fell at 
his words. Then a titter ran about the 
ranks of white-robed retainers who waited 
on the Shaikh al Jebal. 

"Say,” came the reply from the Old Man 
of the Mountain, "that Sinan, Lord of 
Alamut and Lord of Life and Death, bids 
the gipsy Kha Khan get back to his pig-sty 
villages beyond the mountains while he has 
life to go. He who triumphed over Sala- 
din the Victory-Bringer, and took tribute 
from the Lion-Hearted Malik Ric of Eng- 
land fears no outland horde. Get thee back 
to herding swine and driving sheep while 
yet I let thee live. I have spoken.” 

Gaussin turned upon his heel, two re- 
tainers put a bandage round his eyes and 
led him through the winding exits of the 
castle of the Assassins. 

rpHE causeway leading from the castle 
wound in a steep spiral no wider than 
to let two horsemen ride abreast, and with 
a strong watch-tower at each turn. A 
handful of determined men could hold it 
against a host. Gaussin trod warily, for 
the slippery roadway had no parapet, and a 
false step meant a fall of half a thousand 
feet. At last he reached the gateway in 
the wall that circled round the mountain 
foot, passed through the guard of hot- 
eyed, lean-faced soldiers and paused upon 
the outer threshold to draw a breath of 
clean air.' It was like coming from a 
charnel house, this exit from the Krak al 
Jebal. 

"Ho, comrades," he called to his wait- 
ing escort, "I am come out again!” 

No answer came. Could they be sleep- 
ing? "Hoi" he shouted, "where be ye, 
sons of nearly noseless mothers, brothers 


92 


WEIRD TALES 


of indifferently moral sisters?” Only 
silence answered him, and he strode for- 
ward angrily. 

The stamping of a horse attracted his 
attention, and as he turned toward it he 
caught the gleam of sheepskins in the 
darkness. 

"Rouse ye, sons of calamity, uncles of 
ten thousand uncouth cockroaches!” he 
roared. "Stand on thy misshapen feet and 
tell me why ye dare sleep thus — ” 

His voice snapped like a frayed rope 
under sudden strain. The escort lay upon 
their backs, feet crossed, arms out as if 
they had been crucified against the 
ground, and from each breast there pro- 
truded the red handle of Assassins’ mur- 
der-knives. Each body terminated in a 
bloody neck, and from four stakes four 
severed heads grinned at him. The Kha 
Khan’s long blue banner lay upon the 
earth, tattered, trampled, smeared with 
mud and filth. 

"By Allah and the good Saint John the 
Baptist, by the Lord Gotama Boodh, an 
hundred heads shall fall for each hair in 
thy beards, my comrades!” Gaussin swore. 
"And as for this insult to the Great Khan’s 
standard — ” 

"Whatever falls or stands, ’twill make 
small difference to thee, O Tartar.” Silent 
as shadows, four retainers of the Old Man 
of the Mountain had emerged from the 
darkness, and ranged themselves before 
him. The moonlight glittered on their slim 
curved cimeters and on the hard white 
teeth beneath their black mustaches. 

"Tliou earnest bearing insults tp the Lord 
of Death,” their leader said. "Behold, we 
send the Kha Khan back his messengers, 
and though they may not speak, methinks 
the message they take back will be well 
understood. Bow thy neck to the sword, 
O Tartar upstart, thy day of doom has 
come.” 

'Then they were on him like the wolf- 
pack on a stag, slashing at him with the 


sickles of their cimeters, digging for tlie 
joints of his harness with their venomed 
daggers. 

He drew his battle-sword and met their 
charge with a mad bellow of defiance. 
"God wills it!” 

But at the first stroke he felt consterna- 
tion surging through him like cold fever. 
He had been disarmed when he went 
through the gate of Alamut, and his 
weapon had been returned to him in its 
sheath. Not suspecting perfidy, he had 
made no test of it, but now, as he swung 
it, the blade snapped in his hand where it 
had been sawed almost through with files. 

'The Assassins screamed witli glee as the 
sword parted in his grasp, but they reck- 
oned without that far strain of Northern 
blood which had trickled into Gaussin’s 
veins from some Norse berserker. If he 
was formidable when armed, he was terri- 
ble in his unarmed fiuy. 

With a mighty shout he leaped upon the 
foremost Assassin, grasped him in his bare 
hands and raised him overhead, crashing 
him against two others with a force that 
sent them sprawling in a heap. Then, be- 
fore they could rise from their stunned 
fall, he seized a rock as great as a man’s 
girth and smashed it down on them so 
fiercely that the cracking of their bones was 
like the sound of snail-shells trodden 
underfoot. 

But while he dealt thus with the three, 
the fourth Assassin had leaped on his back 
and slashed his knife across his brow. He 
felt the poisoned steel shear through his 
flesh and grate against the bone as if it 
had been iron reddened in the fire, felt the 
spate of hot blood rush into his eyes, heard 
a terrible, wild baying, as of a wolf that 
closes for the kill, heard the squeaking, 
screaming shriek of his assailant as he 
loosed the strangle-hold upon his neck and 
dropped off of his shoulder. 'Then, blood- 
blinded and in torment from the wound 
the venomed dagger made, he fell fainting 


THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


93 


to the ground beside his headless com- 
rades. 

S YLVANETTE had worn her wolfish 
form like a hair-shirt for almost a 
year. When she first realized the dreadful 
change that had come on her she was so 
prostrated with horror that she could but 
lie upon the orchard grass and whimper 
like a beaten cur, but in a little while she 
rose and stretched her shaggy limbs, find- 
ing a kind of pleasure in their strength 
and suppleness. By morning she was 
ravenous and trotted out in search of food. 
A flock was grazing in a nearby meadow, 
and the shepherd ran screaming at her ap- 
proach, but when she seized a little woolly 
lamb in her jaws and heard its piteous 
blasts for mercy she could not find the 
heart to kill it, but ran with it until she 
overtook its panic-stricken mother and 
dropped the trembling baby by the ewe’s 
side. Then, hungrier than ever, she gal- 
loped through the wood until she came 
upon a cotter’s croft and saw a joint of 
mutton hanging from a hook. Pursued 
by frenzied curses of the farmer, sire made 
off with the haunch of meat, feasted at her 
leisure and slept until the sun went down 
and it was time to quest for food again. 

Now and then she met with other 
wolves. As human maid she had been ter- 
rified at the mere mention of a wolf, but 
in her changed shape she not only had no 
fear of them, but, finding herself larger 
than the largest of them, swaggered 
through their midst, helped herself to their 
kills, and turned with savage snarls if they 
disputed their queenship. Once an old she- 
wolf would have stood against her, but Syl- 
vanette charged at her, bore her down and 
shook her as a terrier shakes a rat. Only 
when the other’s carcass dangled limply 
from her jaws did she relax her hold. 
After that the wolf-pack gave her room, 
and yielded up their kills without dispute. 
Northward she traveled, sometimes fifty 


or a hundred miles a day, seeking with her 
new-found beast’s instinct for the solitudes 
of the Taurus. Presently she came upon 
the ashes of the circling watch-fires of a 
mighty Tartar camp. Food was there in 
abundance — knuckles of fat sheep, joints 
of beef scarce touched by carvers’ knives, 
broken meats from goat stew, all that she 
could eat, and more. Why run the woods 
and fight with other wolves when here was 
provender in plenty, ready for the taking? 
So she followed the cold campfires from 
Armenia almost to the shores of the Sea 
of the Ravens. 

One day as she was foraging among the 
trenches where the oxen had been roasted 
whole, she heard the drum of hoof-beats, 
and, true to her instincts, sank down upon 
her belly until her gray-furred body seemed 
to melt and disappear against the gray 
wood-ashes of the pit. Then, suddenly, 
she smelled it. Not exactly a perfume, 
but sweeter to her twitching nostrils than 
the finest scent of Araby or far Cathay. 
Long since sh&’d noticed that each animal 
and man had a scent of his own, but this 
was like no other, it was ... it was . . . 

The troop of horsemen galloped by, a 
horse-tail standard at their head, the leader 
wrapped in furs of gray lynx, and at the 
sight of him she knew. Despite his Mon- 
gol armor and the way his long mustache 
drooped in twin braids, she knew him. 
Gaussin — her Gaussin! What he did so 
far from Acre, riding with the leather- 
armored horsemen of the Cham of Tar- 
tary, she knew not, nor did she care. He 
was here, she had his scent, she need only 
follow it to be near him. 

After that she stayed as close to the great 
camp as possible, and whenever Gaussin 
rode out with his followers a great gray 
shaggy wolf loped through the broken land 
that paralleled his road. When he pitched 
camp she stayed near. When his tents 
were struck she took up the march with 
him. 


94 


‘ WEIRD TALES 


She had followed him across the winter- 
blasted plains to Aiamut, saw him leave his 
comrades in the valley while he climbed the 
causeway to the Krak al Jebal. When the 
Assassins leaped treacherously upon the 
Mongol soldiers she growled in fury, but 
she dared not risk a fight with them. Gaus- 
sin might return at any moment, and she 
must be strong and whole to help him if 
he needed her. 

She saw them set upon him, and her 
woman-wolf’s heart rejoiced at the fierce- 
ness of the battle she gave them, but when 
the fourth Assassin leaped on Gaussin’s 
back and struck him with his dagger she 
Imew the time for watching had gone by. 
With a fierce, belling bay she pounced 
upon the drug-crazed man and sank her 
great teeth in bis neck. 

It was astonishing how weak human 
flesh could be. The man fell easily before 
her charge; when she worried him he made 
but feeble efforts to defend himself — or 
so it seemed to her. His arms were puny, 
the dagger with which he had cut Gaussin 
had fallen at her attack, and unarmed he 
was no more a match for her than the lit- 
tle lamb she spared had been. E'xultingly, 
she closed her jaws upon his gullet, felt the 
warm blood gush, looked with fierce, fiery 
eyes into his terrified fast-glazing orbs, 
heard the strangling, blood-choked cry he 
gave before she tore his tliroat away and 
mangled his face with her claws. 

Then she turned to Gaussin. The dag- 
ger which had wounded him . . . she had 
heard of those Assassins’ knives . . . ’twas 
said tliey were envenomed. Feverishly she 
licked the red wound that barred his 
brow. The blood began to flow less 
freely. Presently it almost ceased to 
trickle, but still she lapped at it, hoping 
madly against hope that she could draw the 
venom from the cut before it entered his 
blood stream. 

Gaussin came slowly back to con- 
sciousness. The wound across his brow 


burned like a brand and he was almost 
blinded with the blood that drenched 
his eyes, but dimly he realized a great 
wolf stood above him, licking the hot, 
bleeding cut with a pink tongue. 'The 
beast whined softly, as if to reassure him, 
and he sank back weakly. Presently, after 
the immemorial w'ont of wounded men, he 
moaned, 'T thirst.” The wolf left off her 
ministrations for a moment, then took his 
leather helmet in her teeth and trotted off. 
In a little while she came back with the 
headgear almost filed with water from the 
nearby brook. He drank greedily, and 
afterward he slept. 

Something plucked him by the arm, 
softly, gently, but insistently. Presently he 
woke to find the she-w’olf still beside him, 
urging him to rise. It was difficult to get 
upon his feet, but with his fingers laced in 
her thick fur he managed it, staggering 
drunkenly along the rough trail. His 
bestial guide seemed aware of his weak- 
ness, and every hundred steps or so she 
halted while he gathered back his strength. 
Also, he noted, she kept from the high- 
road, following the woodland paths, some- 
times halting with a fierce low growl while 
she sniffed the air; once or twice she 
dragged him down, and shortly afterward 
a troop of Assassins rode past at a gallop. 

TTOW long he traveled thus he had no 
accurate idea. He knew only she 
guided and sustained him, licked his fes- 
tering wound imtil it began to heal, lay 
close to him and w'armed him with shaggy 
body when he slept, and ranged the woods 
to bring back hares or pheastnts or suck- 
ling pigs for his fare. 

At last there came a day when she ap- 
peared to think it safe to^ take the open 
road, and as they trudged along he heard 
a sound he had not thought to hear again, 
the rumble of Tartar kettle-drums. In a 
few minutes he saw them, a troop of 
leather-armored horsemen with horse-tails 


THE GENTLE WEREWOLF 


95 


trailing from their helmets, lance-tips 
glinting in the morning sun. 

"Mangoli Khan!” the leader cried. 
"Praise be to such gods as perhaps there 
are! We had not thought to see thee. 
The Old Man of the Mountain sent thy 
four companions’ heads to us; thee we 
thought he had surely slain, also.” 

The she-wolf turned under Gaussin’s 
hand, freeing her shoulder from his clutch. 
She made a sound half whine, half moan, 
and would have turned into the brush, but 
Gaussin dropped upon his knees beside 
her. 

"Nay, Lady Wolf, good, sweet wolfkin^ 
I will not have it so!” he denied. By all 
the blessed saints in Paradise, I swear I 
love thee, dearest beast!” And with his 
arms about her furry neck he kissed her 
full upon the hairy mouth. 

He thought it was delusion, or return 
of his delirium, for instead of the rough, 
wiry pelt of the she-wolf he felt a mass 
of soft black tresses, perfumed with the 
spice of Araby, across his cheek; instead 
of the wolf’s hairy muzzle a pair of lips 
as soft as rose leaves pressed against his 
mouth. She was clinging to him. He 
could feel her heart beat. Her hair was 
fragrant on his cheek. No she-wolf, this, 
but a sweet, softly-molded woman. His 
Sylvanette! 

He said her name slowly, wonderingly. 
Then, as in the foothills of the Lebanons: 

"Sylvette ma drue! Sylvette ma mie! 

En vous ma mort, en vous ma mie!” 

Came her answer, low and tender-sweet: 

"Bel ami, ainsi, va de nous! 

Ne vous sans moi, ni mot sans vous!" 

The stolid Tartars of the guard showed 
small astonishment at seeing a woman 
where there had been a she-wolf. On the 


steppes of Muscovy where they were 
weaned the vrykolakas — man-wolf — was 
almost as common as the house-dog, and 
those who chose to shift their shapes did 
so, nor was it any concern of their neigh- 
bors. Methodically they made two litters 
of sheepskin coats stretched over lances and 
bore the fainting Mangoli Khan and his 
wolf-lady back to camp. 

H OW the armies of the Kha Khan laid 
siege to the fortress of the Old Man 
of the Mountain and plucked it apart stone 
by' stone as children break a house of 
blocks; how the Grand Master of tbe 
Assassins went in chains to the blue-tiled 
court of the Great Khan at Karakorum and 
was never seen again is another story. Our 
concern is with Gaussin and Sylvanette. 

Not until they had been wed did they 
hear each other’s odysseys. 

They lay upon their couch of skins with 
rugs of sables and lynx fur over them, and 
through the tent’s thick walls of black felt 
came the muted thunder of the kettle- 
drums. 

He stroked the hair that tangled round 
her neck, and at his touch the small 
pulse in her throat quickened. For a long 
time they lay thus; then she raised herself 
to 'draw the heavy coils of her hair from 
beneath her shoulders. Her lips touched 
his. Touched, and clung. "O my be- 
loved,” she murmured, " ’twas thy kiss 
that set me free from wolfshead.” 

"What say’st thou?” he answered 
sleepily. 

"I said thou gavest me freedom from 
my wolfish shape with thy kiss.' For this 
was the condition which La Crainte made 
when she ensorcelled me: 'Take and retain 
the form of a she-wolf until some noble 
lord shall kiss thy hairy beast’s-lips and 
declare his love for thee’’ ” 



'His body leaned into the wind, a spectral shadow doom-haunted.” 


^^ystal 

By HARRY WALTON 

Jagged spears claiming their victims, the huge crystal globes rolled 
over a terrified world whose end seemed very near. 


Horde 



^^T^ANGEROUS!” muttered 
I M Peter Landers, laying the 
Ji - — ^ pinkish, sharp-spiked little 
snhere upon the work-bench to fuss with 


the galvanometer leads. "These things are 
deadly. 1 know.” 

Tony Mills nodded, unwilling to contra- 
dict the older man in what had become a 


THE CRYSTAL HORDE 


97 


fixed idea with him. Yet it was too absurd 
to credit, this conviction of Landers that 
the Martian crystals, first brought to earth 
by his own father twenty years ago, were 
a menace. The strange, unearthly beauty 
of them, the mystery and desolation of the 
red planet that somehow inhered in them — 
these Mills could grant; but that the crys- 
tals were other than what tliey seemed — 
exotic jewels of an alien world — he could 
not believe. 

Yet this was what Landers was trying to 
prove to an incredulous world, this the pur- 
pose of his endless, futile experiments here 
in his private laboratory in the Berkshires. 
Daily for six months Mills had watched 
him, and the slow decadence of a brilliant 
mind. Belief had become obsession with 
the man. The scientific world that had once 
respected him now called him mad. But 
Tony Mills thought him merely ill. 

"The clamps, Tony!” Landers snapped 
churlishly. "I want the clamps!” 

Mills found them, refusing to flare up 
over the older man’s petulance. He watched 
Landers fumble with the galvanometer con- 
nections in a manner characteristic of him 
now — of the aged, somehow senile Lan- 
ders. Mills himself picked up the crystal, 
held the starry, pink-white cluster gingerly 
against the light. 

The spiny form of this one was rare. 
Most of the crystals were smooth ovals or 
spheres. Expensive at first, when collectors 
had paid a fortune for the few brought 
back by the elder Landers on his epochal 
space-journey to Mars, their popularity had 
spread as they had become cheaper and 
more plentiful. Scarcely a family, rich or 
poor, but treasured one or more of 
them. 

A name had been coined for them: "Mar- 
sistals.” Crystals from Mars! What won- 
der they had captured the popular fancy? 
What wonder that you could almost sense a 
world of alien life within the clouded heart 
of them, or that Peter Landers should seize 


upon them as the fertile field of his delu- 
sions? 

Tony Mills laid the crystal down, wiped 
his hands unobtrusively as though to 
cleanse them of unseen contamination — 
and cursed himself for doing so. 

Landers put the crystal into a tiny vise, 
adjusted contact cups to bear against the 
thing’s spines, and tightened the vise with 
unnecessary care — unnecessary, because it 
was impossible to break a Marsistal by any 
means known to man. All efforts to crack, 
grind or polish them had been unsuccess- 
ful. Carborundum and diamond failed to 
scratch their impregnable surface. Their 
structure and substance remained a mys- 
tery, baffling analysis, resisting acid. X-rays, 
the electric furnace. 

For twenty years the crystals had been 
studied, even tested, as Landers was testing 
this one, for Piezzo effects. There arp crys- 
tals which, by some curious molecular fric- 
tion within, generate a minute electrical 
current when subjected to pressure. Mar- 
sistals did not. But Landers tightened the 
vise, watched the galvanometer intently. 
The pointer, which would indicate the 
feeblest flow of current, remained motion- 
less. 

Tony Mills roused himself. There was 
little he could do for Landers, and that 
little he had done. His own work waited 
— the ultra-short-wave experiments which 
he was concluding, upon whicli depended 
his future — and Marcia’s future with him. 
Tlie thought of her was a heady wine, in- 
vigorating. 

"I have to be going,” he said. "Lots of 
work to finish.” 

"Fine, Tony. Fine,” responded Landers 
absently, toying with the crystal. "Damn! 
'These things are sharp.” 

M ills grunted sympathy as the older 
man inspected his thumb. There was 
no blood, and after a moment Landers went 
to work again with trembling, inept fin- 


98 


WEIRD TALES 


gers. Mills stared broodingly at the instru- 
ment. A sharp exclamation from Landers 
startled him. Unbelievingly he saw the gal- 
vanometer needle heel sharply over. 

Simultaneously there was a sound, like 
the quick indrawing of breath a man takes 
in sudden agony. It took Mills perhaps a 
tenth of a second to tear his eyes away from 
the galvanometer, and by then a terrible 
silence had set in, upon which his own gasp 
of incredulous horror broke loudly. 

Peter Landers was slumped over beside 
the work-bench with a spear of crystal 
through him. Even in death, what was 
left of his hand still grasped the thing, ex- 
cept that the thumb — the same he had 
pricked before and must have pierced upon 
one of those needle-sharp spines just be- 
fore he cried out — was a bloody stump. The 
crystal itself, for that lightning-brief instant 
during which all photographed itself upon 
Mills’ vision, was as before except for a 
single foot-long sliver that stabbed out 
from it and dribbled blood behind Landers’ 
back. 

But the thing must have started to grow 
immediately. Landers’ body stirred, and a 
second crystal splinter spurtod out below a 
shoulder-blade. More followed, with a 
constant crisp tinkling like the breaking 
of innumerable very thin glass rods, a 
musical shower of sound — brittle, delicate, 
terrible. 

Mills leaped across the room,' away from 
the spiked horror. It continued to grow, 
new spears thrusting out explosively to the 
accompaniment of that grisly chorus of 
sound. Then, suddenly, it stopped grow- 
ing because it had assimilated Landers’ 
body, bone, blood and gristle. It paused 
in its growth and there was silence. 

It was still a spiked cluster, spherical, 
with a diameter now of about six feet. 
Upon its spears clung shreds of clothing, a 
metal buckle, pieces of a shoe. The crystal 
itself was spotless, unstained by the blood 
it had absorbed. Its color seemed deeper. 


but that may have been due to its greater 
size. 

Mills swore, a low stream of vituperation 
that seemed to suck the poison of fear from 
him as he spat it forth. Slowly he edged 
toward the door, lest a footstep reveal to 
the thing that life remained in this room 
of death. * 

'That swift, surging growth must have 
left it unoriented for the moment, its facul- 
ties as yet unconditioned to its new size 
and environment, for Mills gained the door 
and was able to bolt it shut from the out- 
side. From the woodshed he got hammer 
and nails and enough lumber to board up 
the laboratory windows. He locked the 
house and took the keys with him. His 
thoughts, as he returned to his own cabin, 
ran riot. 

Landers had given ghastly proof of his 
madcap theory. How had he known? What 
had prompted the belief that became obses- 
sion, that ordered his life and resulted in 
his death? What had he known that science 
and reason had overlooked for twenty 
years? Had it been merely a "hunch,” part 
of Peter Landers’ tragic heritage from a 
family intimately associated with the crys- 
tals from the first? 

Ralph Landers and his flight partner 
Comstock had been first to reach Mars, 
first to bring the glittering baubles to earth. 
And Ralph Landers had perished in his 
rickety, ill-built little ship during a second 
attempt to reach the red world. His wife 
had clung stubbornly to the belief that the 
crystals had brought about his death, al- 
though even now that seemed impossible. 
She had begged her son to avoid them as 
a curse. Queer and old-fashioned that had 
sounded to the Twenty-First Century, 
which had abolished curses and like super- 
stitions from its complacent scheme of 
things. But even this modern age hadn’t 
abolished mother love or that strange thing 
called intuition — the unreasoned wisdom 
of a mind sharpened by love and loss. And 


THE CRYSTAL HORDE 


99 


Peter Landers had perished — by a Mar- 
sistal. 

But wliat was done was done. Mills 
forced himself to deliberate upon the im- 
mediate problem. Landers would not be 
missed soon; he had tolerated so few visi- 
tors, had kept so colistantly indoors, that 
even his immediate neighbors rarely saw 
liim. Nor were these likely to approach 
the Landers place. Warren Pastor, ostensi- 
bly a writer but addicted to day-dreaming 
and sporadic playing of tire violin, was far 
too immersed in himself to betray the faint- 
est interest in any other living tiring. And 
Burk Hall, who with his blind father lived 
on a stony, little farm near&y and raised 
prize-winning hogs, could ill afford time 
away from his work to inquire into his 
neighbors’ affairs. No one else was near 
enough to count. 

M ills saw nothing to be gained by no- 
tifying the local constabulary. The 
village authorities were not of the caliber to 
deal with a problem such as this one. But 
who w'as? How was the swollen crystal 
to be disposed of.^ Acid, fire, lightning 
itself would have no effect upon it, if it 
retained, as he felt bitterly certain it did, 
the known properties of a Marsistal. If 
buried, would it not feed upon the very 
worms, and thrust itself again to the sur- 
face in convulsive growth? Was it perhaps 
best to immure it in Landers’ laboratory, to 
seal it behind concrete walls? 

Certainly he dared attempt nothing of 
himself. Once Landers was missed, sus- 
picion would rest upon him, as the scien- 
tist’s sole companion. For Mills’ own sake 
there must be witnesses to the giant crystal’s 
existence. Warning must be given, for the 
menace existed, potentially, everywhere. 

It W'as a simple matter to put through a 
radiophone call to the nearest Federal Po- 
lice post, not so simple to explain to a bored 
desk sergeant w'hy he wanted a detail sent 
to a tiny hamlet in the Berkshires. Mills 


had no intention of telling the story to an 
incredulous underling; to be dubbed a 
crank or a drunk would result in his call 
being ignored entirely. Besides that, the 
police wave-band was a public one, and 
casual listeners-in might spread the facts, 
create needless panic. He forced himself 
to be content with a promise that a police 
plane would arrive by morning, reflecting 
that the matter could well wait until then, 
that nothing could be done tonight. 

Mechanically he turned to his own work 
on the ultra-short band. His receiver 
brought in immediately a piping, reedy 
whistle which he assumed to be a test call 
of some kind. But when, tired of wait- 
ing for the sender to identify himself, he 
tuned elsewhere in the band, it w’as to en- 
counter the same signal all over the dial. 
In desperation he settled back, frowning 
over his thoughts, hearing again the brittle 
tinkle of the crystal’s ghastly growth, see- 
ing in memory that indelible mind-photo 
of Peter Landers with a spear of crystal 
dripping blood behind his back — only a 
little blood, because the thing absorbed it 
so quickly — absorbed it through an impreg- 
nable surface which no agency on earth 
could so much as scratch! 

Monotonous, rhythmic rather than me- 
chanical, resembling ancient voodoo drums 
and tom-toms rather than a test call, the 
mysterious signal continued. Upon impulse 
Mills swung a stratospheric direction finder 
upon it, plotted its readings, and felt 
a creeping chill gather along his spine as 
the result stared up at him from the 
chart. 

The area intersected by the lines was per- 
haps half a square mile. On the map, it 
was that territory bounded by the nearby 
village of Spotswell, the cabin of Warren 
Pastor and his wife, and Mills’ own place. 
In almost the exact center of that triangle 
stood the Landers laboratory, from which a 
giant Marsistal, swollen on human food, 
was sending forth the call of its kind — a 


100 


WEIRD TALES 


clarion call of growth, triumphant, hungry, 
strong. 

2 

■[V /^ILLS slept badly and was starkly awake 
i-VX when the door-chime rang early the 
following morning. Upon the threshold 
stood Burk Hall, a strapping, red-headed 
young giant, his brow now wrinkled with 
unwonted thought. 

*'I reckoned I’d better wake you,” he 
told Mills. “You’d know v/hat to do. 
There’s been an explosion up at Landers’.” 

"An explosion?” Mills felt his heart 
miss a beat. "When? What happened?” 

"Don’t rightly know when. I didn’t 
hear nothin’. But I seen it when I started 
my chores. Whole side of the house is 
ripped out, like from inside. You could 
drive a cow through the hole, easy.” 

"Did you see — anytliing?” 

"Just only what I told you. What’ll we 
do now?” 

"I’ll advise the police,” offered Mills. 
"You go back — no, run and tell Pastor 
and his wife to stay indoors — the fool 
hasn’t a phone. Tell them not to budge 
from the house. Then get back to your 
place and stay there — inside. Don’t ask 
questions now; I’ll explain later.” 

Hall left, muttering. Mills dialed the 
police post on the radiophone, but received 
no reply. Angrily he switched on his 
speaker, prepared to rebuke some sleepy 
exchange operator. But no operator an- 
swered. Instead came a maddening "pee- 
whlt, pee-whit, pee-whit” — monotonously 
regular, unvarying, and blanketing not the 
short-wave, but the radiophone band this 
time. With furious energy Mills checked 
his apparatus. His sender was undoubtedly 
functioning, but its output was scarcely 
equal to that of the interfering signal. 
Whether his call w'as being received or not, 
he could not tell. Any reply would be 
drowned out by that insanely repetitious 


whistle. There was nothing to do but to 
wait for the detail plane promised him the 
night before. 

Only one man in the neighborhood 
would have imagination enough to credit 
the fantastic truth — Warren Pastor. 'That 
Pastor wasn’t a practical man did not matter 
at the moment. Mills felt a compelling 
urge to share the terrible facts with some- 
one. 

He left his house and struck out for the 
writer’s cabin, keeping sharp watch as he 
hurried on. From the top of a rise he saw 
Landers’ laboratory, with one wall broken 
out, the splintered beams showing. Im- 
possible to doubt that the Marsistal, pos- 
sessed of some strange locomotive power, 
had escaped. 

The Pastor place was as slovenly as the 
man himself. A weed-strangled garden, a 
dingy hammock, a litter of boxes and camp 
stools everywhere — for Pastor wrote, 
dozed, or played the violin wherever the 
fancy struck him — these were expressive of 
the man, as was his refusal to install even 
an old-fashioned wire telephone or other 
more modern conveniences. Under a lean- 
to Nancy Pastor bent over a washtub, her 
bare arms beaded with suds. 

"Is Warren inside?” he asked, and after 
her stolid nod added: "Please come with 
me, Mrs. Pastor. Right away.” 

Wordlessly she followed him, faced 
Mills and her husband as silently inside 
the cheerless living-room, her features a 
strange blend of patience and shrewishness, 
of nag and drudge. Pastor called her his 
Xantippe. God knew, thought Mills, the 
poor woman had better reason to bewail 
her lot than the notorious wife of Socrates. 

Warren Pastor himself remained lying 
on a couch, his eyes half closed, a bottle 
of whisky on the table beside him. 

"Has Burk Hall been here?” Mills asked 
angrily. 

Pastor opened his eyes for a moment. 
"He was — with a stupid story about Lan- 


THE CRYSTAL HORDE 


101 


ders’ place exploding. That old fool will 
blast himself to hell one of these days. But 
that was no reason for Nancy to stay in- 
doors. She had her work to do.” 

“Landers is dead,” Mills announced 
bluntly, and told the story, omitting noth- 
ing. "The Marsistal is at large now. It 
can move, can hunt its food. Nobody is 
safe outdoors.” 

They waited for him to continue, offer- 
ing no comment. 

“But there may be greater danger than 
ours,” Mills plunged on. “Those signals 
last night — they weren’t mechanical, like 
this morning’s. They had meaning. They 
were intended to be heard. What if there 
are — or will be — others?” 

Pastor sat up abruptly, his abundant hair 
wildly unkempt, his lean, bony face twitch- 
ing. “Others, yes! Then — ^Judgment! 
Judgment of your kind and Landers’ kind 
— of all the fools who worship what they 
call progress, who put a halter around their 
necks and call it science. Judgment, when 
those who reached the stars find it was only 
to bring their doom to earth! ” 

His eyes blazed fanatically as he poured 
himself a drink and gulped it. Mills 
watched with a sickening sense of futility. 
Nancy Pastor glanced from him to her hus- 
band, a dull urgency in her spiritless 
eyes. 

“But we haven’t seen it,” she said at 
last. "It must be gone, or we would have 
seen it. And I can’t stay indoors, with all 
my washing to finish.” 

Pitifully intent upon the work awaiting 
her, she shuffled out before -Mills could 
stop her. Before the apatliy of the wife, 
the fanaticism of the husband, he felt worse 
than helpless. In all likelihood no argu- 
ment he could offer would have kept her. 
As for Pastor, it was in keeping with his 
fatalism to make no objection. Mills 
turned upon him angrily. 

"You’re going to ask me what’s to be 
done,” taunted Pastor before Mills could 


speak. "And I’ll tell you. Nothing! It’s 
Judgment!” 

“I was a fool to come here,” said Mills. 
“It was only that I wanted somebody be- 
sides myself to know ” 

F rom outside came a shrill drawn-out 
shriek. Mills hit the door solidly and 
was through before Pastor got to his feet. 
What he saw froze the blood in his veins. 
Nancy Pastor was running wildly toward 
the lake, and the Marsistal pursued her, 
rolling on those incredibly hard spikes with 
a curious, hesitant, space-consuming gallop. 
The thing was larger than it had been in 
the laboratory; perhaps it had fed since. 
And perversely Mills’s mind took note, 
even as he dashed after the thing, that the 
crystal’s rhythm of motion, a pause and a 
rush, a pause and a rush, was exactly that 
of the “pee-whit, pee-whit” of the radio- 
phone band. 

He plunged madly after it, the ground 
slope toward the lake speeding him on, but 
quickening also the gait of the sphere. 
Pause and a rush . . . pause and a rush. . . . 

Nancy Pastor looked back once, terror 
in her haggard face. In blind panic she 
ran on, unseeing, straight toward a half- 
folded camp stool that lay where Pastor 
had flung it. Mills shouted warning at 
the top of his voice. She gave no heed. 
A moment later she sprawled headlong 
over the stool, rolling over once in a pitiful 
effort to gain her feet before the crystal 
reached her. 

It hesitated for a barely perceptible in- 
stant, then went on as before — a rush and 
a pause, a rush and a pause — with Nancy 
Pastor spreadeagled upon its spikes and 
turning over and over with it as though 
lashed to a gigantic St. Catherine’s wheel. 

The Marsistal rolled on toward the lake, 
into the water with a splash, out from 
shore like some bizarre aquatic creature re- 
turning to its element, until the blue-green 
surface closed over it. Mills stared stupidly 


102 


WEIRD TALES 


at crimson flecks of blood spotting the 
grass. In the trail of the thing the greens- 
ward was indented with sharp prick marks. 

He turned away, almost colliding with 
Pastor. For once the complacent shell of 
egotism surrounding the man was pierced. 
But he allowed Mills to take his arm, to 
lead him back to the Pastor cabin, walking 
as in a stupor, muttering over and over 
again a single word: "Judgment!” 

Mills’s own wirephone — an antiquated 
village affair — was ringing madly when he 
returned to his place. The postmaster, call- 
ing from the nearby hamlet, was almost 
incoherent with fright. Haltingly he gave 
Mills a message: that the Federal Police 
post found itself unable to spare the prom- 
ised detail, in view of a nation-wide emer- 
gency that demanded every available man 
and made it impossible to respond to 
routine calls for the time being. What 
emergency? Hadn’t he, the postmaster 
asked frantically, seen the day’s tele-news 
sheets? 

Mills thanked the man. The Federal 
Police call had no doubt come through 
sometime when the Marsistal had been at 
rest, when the interference accompanying 
its movement was not abroad. His own 
radio-printed news sheet confirmed that 
guess; it was a mere smear in spots, but 
there was sufficient legible print to tell its 
hideous story a dozen times over, under 
as many date-lines. 

Two hundred deaths of wearers of Mar- 
sistal jewelry were recorded, in Capetown, 
London, Tokyo, New York, and even in 
the new ultra-smart Antarctic resorts. Crys- 
tals ten feet in diameter were rolling down 
Unter den Linden in Berlin, down New 
York’s Fifth Way, over San Francisco’s an- 
cient Golden Gate Bridge. Scores of per- 
sons were missing in cities, towns, and open 
countryside. 

With the terror scarcely ten hours old, 
’already a dozen theories existed to account 
for it. Comstock, one of the men first to 


bring the crystals to earth, suggested that 
they might have been but one form of life 
upon ancient Mars, that in their blind lust 
for food they might have wiped out all 
other life without trace, until them- 
selves starved into a state of suspended 
animation. 

Mills found that easy to believe. For 
eons those horned spheres must have 
roamed a world their rapacious appetite 
had denuded of all other living things. 
Finding no more food, they must have set- 
tled in the dust of the red world at last, 
such life as dwelt in them, immortal as 
human life is measured, sustained by the 
slow consumption of their own bulks, 
drawing such infinitesimal energy as it re- 
quired from the residue of their bodies, 
until these had shrunk to the tiny ovals, 
spheres and spiked clusters Comstock and 
Landers had found. Possibly the spiked 
crystals were those that had fed a little 
longer than the rest, and so were a little 
less removed from their original form. 

The substance of the things? Perhaps 
an allotropic form of some familiar ele- 
ment, yet diflfering from that element as 
greatly as a diamond, that superlatively 
hard allotropic form of carbon, differs from 
ordinaty carbon. Crystalline matter en- 
dowed with life! Invulnerable, fittest of 
all living things to survive — and to con- 
quer! 

Brought to earth and into daily contact 
with compounds new to their chemistry of 
life, they had by some evolutionary magic, 
over that period of twenty years, slowly 
altered their metabolism to assimilate the 
new life stuff present all around them — 
carbon. Until yesterday, shrunken, incapa- 
ble of movement, they had been content 
with such quantities as they could absorb 
from the carbon dioxide of the air. How 
could their smooth, spineless bodies have 
availed them5elves of the unfamiliar but 
abundant food supply at hand — flesh and 
blood? 


THE CRYSTAL HORDE 


103 


F WAS inevitable that a crystal which 
had retained its spines should first par- 
take of that food, so prolific of swift 
growth. Through no effort of its own, but 
because of Landers’ trembling, clumsy fin- 
gers, one of its needle-sharp points had 
pierced flesh, its altered metabolism had 
responded instantly to what it now sensed 
was food, and horror had followed. 

Already the call that had gone forth 
from the thing in Landers’ laboratory had 
borne grisly fruit. The last link in the crys- 
tals’ life-chain had been forged when that 
signal had flashed around the world, maca- 
bre command to burst their crystal walls 
and feed. Overnight, with such energy as 
remained to them or they could gain from 
carbon dioxide, they had put forth tiny 
crystalline needles, thirsty for the flesh 
food all about — and woe to the wearer of 
the awakened Marsistal, or to the first to 
handle a hitherto harmless ornament! 

What of Marcia? She had never worn 
Marsistals, Mills remembered with relief. 
In the neat, business-like observatory atop 
Mount Wilson, where she assisted her 
father, there were none of the accursed 
things. Nor was it likely that one could 
make its way up into the pylon-supported 
observatory. Marcia, he thought gratefully, 
was safe. 

From the graveled road leading past the 
house came the pad of running feet. Mills 
went to the door and saw that it was War- 
ren Pastor, hurrying past as though driven 
by some hypnotic urge, his eyes fixed, his 
tangled hair flying free. Mills sprang after 
him, shouting, until he saw Pastor turn 
toward the village. He would probably 
get drunk there and forget for a time. Mills 
decided. It w'ould be as well to let him go. 

Returning to the house. Mills succeeded 
in putting a call through to the Police post, 
and made a full report. Fie was assured 
that the matter would be "investigated in 
due course’’ — a promise in which he put 
little faith. 


With the radio-news sheet under his 
arm, he w’alked through the little pear 
orchard beyond which lay the Hall farm. 
The stuttering song of Hall’s tractor 
reached him before he topped the rise over- 
looking the field, half red and furrowed, 
half green. The machine was at the far 
end, Burk Hall a pigmy behind its steering- 
wheel and levers. Mills hallooed loudly. 
The tractor swung around. 

Watching it against the sun. Mills caught 
the first glint of whirling crystal knives 
rising behind the ridge. Immediately the 
thing came fully into view, began rolling 
downhill with that curious, hesitant, yet 
speedy gait, splashing color from a thou- 
sand facets. The Landers crystal! It was 
larger than before; each revolution there- 
fore carried it farther, and its speed was 
formidable. A man on foot would have 
had no chance of escape. Nor had its im- 
mersion in the lake harmed it. It must 
have consumed Nancy Pastor’s body be- 
neath the surface, and emerged — hungry. 

Mills screamed warning, gesticulated 
madly, prayed that slow-moving, slow- 
thinking Burk Hall would understand be- 
fore it was too late. Hall saw the crystal, 
and menace was too plain in those flashing 
daggers for even him to misunderstand. 
He jerked a lever, lifting the plowshare 
from the soil, and gunned the tractor’s en- 
gine to full speed. The clumsy machine 
lumbered for the orchard, not swiftly, but 
still faster than a man could tun-— fast 
enough perhaps to elude the glittering 
horror behind. 

A shambling figure came down from the 
porch of the Flail house and shuffled into 
the sunlight. Mills, too far away to act, 
sensed rather than heard the blind man’s 
querulous voice raised in senseless ques- 
tioning. With maddening deliberation he 
shuffled closer to flashing death. Burk Hall 
sav/ the old man’s danger, swung the trac- 
tor in a tight arc, tempting the crystal to 
follow. 


104 


WEIRD TALES 


It was abreast of the pig-sty then, and 
whatever senses the thing had decided it 
in favor of the thousand-odd pounds of 
pork nearby. It swerved, crashed through 
steel stakes and wire fencing, mowing 
down the enclosure like so much stubble. 
The pigs squealed, a shrill trumpet of fear 
that was cut off in full voice. Their car- 
casses, swung aloft on that gigantic spiked 
wheel, were already half consumed. 

Nor was the thing sated. Horrified, 
Mills saw it curve toward the elder Hall, 
now standing in trembling indecision full 
in its path. The daggered juggernaut rolled 
down upon him, paused in its relentless 
gait for one brief instant. The old man 
did not cry out. Above tlie tractor’s roar 
came the dr}% penetrating tinkle of the 
crystal’s growth. 

Burk Hall swimg the tractor about again 
and drove for the crystalline horror at full 
speed, throttle wide open, exhaust belching 
blackly, upon his face the passions of the 
damned. 

Twenty feet from the crystal he 
flung himself clear. The tractor ran true, 
crashing solidly with a grinding of metal 
against the gleaming spines. Its front 
wheels reared, clawed upward as though 
to climb that formidable bulk. The ma- 
chine, upended, at last fell on its side like 
an upset toy. 

But it had stopped the crystal for an in- 
stant, long enough for Burk Hall to reach 
the tiny shack set well apart from the house, 
and to set Mills’ heart pounding with 
hope. Hall did all the stump-work in the 
vicinity, blasting out unwanted tree roots, 
breaking rocks for removal. In the shack 
was enough detronite to blow Spotswell 
out of the country. 

H all reappeared, a yellow-and-red 
bundle in his hand capped with the 
ominous purple of a detonator. A stumble, 
a touch, would explode that fistful of death. 
But he was sure-footed, deliberate. He 


flung the explosive at a suicidal distance of 
fifty feet. 

A tremendous blast swept Mills from 
his feet, left him gasping, stone-deaf. He 
felt blood on lips and neck where nose and 
ears bled from the concussion, simultane- 
ously realizing that he was sprawled full 
length. Rolling over slowly, he sat up. 
Something plummeted out of the sky and 
struck deep, quivering, into the soft earth 
where he .had been lying. 

It was a sliver of crystal, perhaps three 
inches long, vibrating there with the force 
of its descent. Shuddering at his narrow 
escape, he still felt a thrill of triumph. The 
detronite must have broken that off. Had 
it shattered the monster sphere? 

'That hope was quickly blasted as he 
caught sight of the thing rolling lakeward. 
The explosion must have sheared a few 
thin spines from it, must have rocked it to 
the core to send it scurrying off so, but had 
done it no real harm. 

Mills hoisted himself drunkenly to his 
feet and lurched toward Hall, who lay face 
down where the explosion had flung him — 
dead, probably, before he struck the 
ground; certainly dead now, for from his 
back jutted a slender knife of crystal that 
sparkled in the sun. Two, three steps more 
Mills took after the fact registered upon 
his dulled senses. Upon the fourth he 
froze motionless. 

For Burk Hall stirred strangely. As a 
corpse moves that is shaken by an alien 
hand, he rose in ghastly resurrection — rose 
upon crystal shafts that burst tinkling from 
his chest, his throat, his thighs — that sang 
as they devoured him, and in their multi- 
tude grew round and spiny like a gigantic 
thistle, while the wind bore away their 
song of growth, crisp, musical, like the 
breaking of innumerable thin glass rods. 

Mills ran then as though his feet had 
been suddenly uprooted. He was past his 
own house before he was sufiiciently recov- 
ered from panic to slow to a walk, and 


THE CRYSTAL HORDE 


105 


fought the horror seething in his brain 
while he continued on into the village. 
Reason told him that all he had seen was 
but an infinitesimal cross section of a tragic 
whole. Not one of these deaths so close 
to him differed essentially from similar 
tragedies in France or China or New Zea- 
land. Not one but was a mere variation 
in the death-theme that underlay the saga 
of mankind. Horror multiplied was the 
fact, a thousand times more acute in the 
crowded cities than in this sparsely-settled 
region. 

3 

TN THE village store and post ofiice, 
w'hen he finally reached it, vociferous 
groups were discussing tlie news bulletins 
whose ghastly headlines frowned from the 
walls. An attempt to poison the crystals 
with beef blood, in which quantities of 
deadly chemicals had been mixed, had 
failed utterly. The spheres had absorbed 
all voraciously — and grown larger. Emer- 
gency regulations required that all Mar- 
sistals be turned over to police authorities. 
A shop prominent for marketing the dread 
jewels had been wrecked by a fear-crazed 
mob. 

A state militia company had been wiped 
out in an attempt to destroy four Marsistals 
with liquid fire. Witnesses told how the 
spheres had plunged eagerly into the 
flames, hungry for the hydrorcarbons pres- 
ent in the fuel and visibly expanding as 
they assimilated them. After attaining a 
diameter of fifteen feet, two Marsistals had 
exploded. Tlie deadly shower of crystal 
splinters following had accounted for most 
of the casualties. More than a score of new 
spheres had sprung into being, grisly off- 
spring of those destroyed by this bizarre 
mode of reproduction. The postmaster- 
storekeeper joined MUls before the bulletin 
board, volubly frightened. Two villagers 
had seen a monster crystal in the vicinity. 
A hysterical boy had brought a tale of see- 


ing it devour a huge Guernsey bull. The 
man prattled on, Mills scarcely hearing, so 
immersed was he in his own thoughts. 

"And now it’s my crystals," groaned the 
postmaster. "The two we’ve had since our 
wedding. You remember we kept them 
here in the store, for show. When the 
bulletin ordered everybody to turn ’em in, 
I picked up a pliers to haadle ’em. with. 
And when I turn my back the things dis- 
appear. Gone, and the dust not settled yet 
where they’d been ’’ 

"Wait!” snapped Mills. "Had Warren 
Pastor been here?" 

"Sure,” responded the postmaster. "But 
he didn’t stay. Didn’t even seem to want 
anything. Seemed kind of ’’ 

Mills left him gaping. There was no 
time to explain — no time for anything but 
the greatest haste if another daggered hor- 
ror were not to be born within tlie hour. 
What insane purpose could have moved 
Pastor he could not imagine. 

TV TILLS scarcely expected to find the man 
alive. But even before reaching the 
Pastor cabin he heard the thin, wailing 
notes of a violin rising upon melancholy 
minor scales, and these repeated with 
minute variation again and again. Nor 
was this the careless playing Pastor usually 
indulged in; it was deliberate, intent, pur- 
poseful. Mills stole up to a window and 
was able to look into the house — and 
promptly wondered whether Pastor had 
gone mad. • 

, The man sat upon a stool, hunched for- 
ward, his face twisted out of all semblance 
to the cool cynic he had been — and fiddled 
to the crystals! The two Marsistals stolen 
from the village store lay upon the table 
before him, and to them Pastor addressed 
his playing, that weird, sobbing, infinitely 
varying sound pattern which seemed to 
seek a hidden, esoteric note — and found it 
suddenly! 

From the instrument surged a shrill. 


106 


WEIRD TALES 


long-drawn tone, quavering eerily upon the 
stillness. One of the crystals vibrated 
briefly in resonance with it, dancing like a 
drop of water on a hot plate — and shivered 
into fragments! 

The sight left Mills a-tremble. Exultant 
in this revelation, he forgot Pastor, forgot 
his own danger there on the hillside where 
Nancy Pastor had been killed, forgot death 
itself. The Marsistals could be destroyed! 
Sound could shatter them! Already he saw 
huge sound-projectors, mobile units w'hich 
would disintegrate the spiked horrors, a 
world reclaimed from death. 

Pastor rose and with the violin under one 
arm left the house. Mills intercepted him. 
In the other’s dilated pupils, in the flaring 
nostrils, in the head thrown too far back, 
but most of all in the black and burning 
eyes. Mills read what Pastor meant to do. 
A blind longing for vengeance had in dne 
brief hour replaced all the calm, futile 
cynicism of the man. For the first time he 
was afire with purpose — to destroy the 
great crystal sphere as he had destroyed the 
Marsistal on the table. He was an imprac- 
tical dreamer even in that; for Mills knew 
th^ even if the resonance frequency of the 
monster crystals were not radically different 
from that of the small one, a far greater 
volume of sound must be directed against 
it to shatter that ton or more of living 
stone. 

Cunningly, Pastor seemed to sense that 
Mills wished to stop him. He broke into 
a run, madness lending him wings; so that 
Mills, although younger and in better 
physical condition, was still thirty feet be- 
hind when Pastor dropped into the little 
motor-skiff Mills kept at the lake. A touch 
of a button, and its electric engine churned 
into life, swiftly propelling it from shore. 
Lacking so much as a row'boat in which to 
follow. Mills stood helpless at the landing. 
The lake was large, and great fringes of 
brush would make it impossible to follow 
the skiff by land. 


Troubled, he returned to the Pastor 
cabin. Into a tin box he slipped the un- 
damaged Marsistal. Then, yielding to an 
uneasy impulse, he scooped the fragments 
of the other into a carton. He chose the 
lake path home in the hope of seeing 
Pastor. 

There was no sign of him, however, and 
Mills forgot him as, reaching his own labo- 
ratory, he was assailed by sudden doubt — 
by a suspicion that struck chillingly at the 
very root of his hope. Quickly he fash- 
ioned a long wire holder, inserted a large 
fragment of the shattered crystal, and held 
it cautiously — mindful of the fate of the 
militia company — in the flame of a bunsen 
burner. Nothing happened, except that 
after thirty seconds the supposed crj'stal 
fragment, red hot, formed a tiny globule 
and dripped from the wire. 

Irony that only here, in the rustic back- 
country, could Pastor still have found an 
imitation Marsistal! Skilfully blown of 
ordinary glass, colored to defy detection, 
the imitations had been immensely popular 
years ago when the real crystals were worth 
a small fortune each. And such a thin 
glass shell Pastor had destroyed. 

But was his inspiration entirely false? 
Was it not possible that sound waves, or 
else ultra-sonic vibrations beyond the range 
of audible sound, might penetrate the in- 
vulnerable shell of those engines of death? 
Must not every slender thread of hope be 
followed to its end, if the horror and heart- 
break of today were not to be multiplied 
until civilization crumbled? 

Removing the shards of the genuine 
Marsistal from its tin container. Mills ex- 
amined them carefully. A hundred times 
he had seen it, a flat, smooth rectangle of 
no striking beauty, in the village store. But 
now there grew from one oval fragment a 
dozen or more needle^sharp protuberances 
scarcely a tenth of an inch long, tiny crystal 
teeth athirst for blood. 

Putting it in a safe place, he went to 


THE CRYSTAL HORDE 


107 


work. Condensers, oscillators and modu- 
lating-coils for the generation of a wide 
range of frequencies were at hand, and 
loudspeakers to convert these currents into 
sound of tremendous volume. In his first 
experiment, with a shrill, keening whistle, 
he shattered a drinking-glass, but the Mar- 
sistal remained intact. Successive experi- 
ments, during which he was repeatedly 
deafened by the cataracts of sound un- 
leashed, also left the crystal untouched. 
Outside, dusk deepened into night. He 
worked furiously on. 

4 

^TX)WARD midnight a sibilant whisper 
outdoors roused him from his labors. 
From the doorway he recognized the 
ghostly outline of a small mono-speedster 
against the sky. It settled softly, and some- 
thing familiar about the little ship set his 
heart throbbing in his throat. He ran out, 
up the hillside, to meet the slim, knicker- 
clad figure alighting. 

He clasped her roughly to him, in pain 
at sight of her in this valley of death. Her 
eyes, luminous in moonlight, were still 
unafraid. 

"Marcia! You should never have come.” 

"You were here,” she answered simply. 
"You didn’t answer my calls ” 

Silently he berated himself for neglect- 
ing to glance at his radiophone recorder. 
Her presence unnerved him; he was afraid 
as he had not been even in Landers’ labo- 
ratory — afraid for her. 

"Come. Let’s hurry inside.” 

He felt her tremble at the first whisper 
of sound, carried by some vagrant air cur- 
rent — a thin wail rising and falling in un- 
eartlily cadence. The thrill of her soft, 
clinging body was lost as the significance 
of that weird melody smote him. Warren 
Pastor, somewhere in the night, courted 
death in his search for vengeance. 

Marcia stifled a cry as she saw it — the 


stooped, bareheaded figure upon the ridge, 
silhouetted against a low bank of clouds, 
leprous-white in moonlight. The thin 
black line of his bow moved up and down 
in rhythm with his plodding step. His 
body leaned into the wind, a spectral 
shadow, doom-haunted. 

Mills saw something else, even more 
terrifying in this silvery halflight than by 
day — whirling glitter of a thousand prisms, 
the rush of a huge, faceted globe hurtling 
through moonlit mist, the senseless plod- 
ding of Pastor — a. shadow walking into the 
valley of shadows — the wail of a violin 
rising to a scream, half human. 

The crystal globe paused for the merest 
fraction of a second. 

Marcia screamed only once. Her hand 
was hot and dry in his as they fled down 
the hill, not daring to look back. But the 
crystal did not follow. Perhaps it had 
been too far away to sense their presence, 
for when Mills looked at the ridge the 
daggered horror was gone. 

He prepared food for the two of them, 
and although neither was hungry, the com- 
monplace ritual of eating calmed them, 
thrust back the memory of what had hap- • 
pened on the ridge into merciful semi- 
reality. But the latest radio-news sheets 
brought it back, starkly clear. Martial law 
had been declared in all large cities. Motor 
caravans and foot travelers fled in exodus 
from infested centers to regions whence the 
horror had preceded them. 

Explosives had been found worse than 
useless, for flying shards of crystal ex- 
panded into new monsters whenever they 
struck a victim. Although a French artil- 
lery company had actually blown a Mar- 
sistal to bits with heavy shell-fire, against 
this solitary triumph stood the fact that 
there was not enough ammunition in exist- 
ence to exterminate one half of that far- 
flung crystal horde, even had suflicient 
heavy cannon been available. 

Tons of ordinary Marsistals had been 


108 


WEIRD TALES 


relinquished to the authorities and stored 
in bank vaults, concrete dugouts and the 
like. At one time it had been hoped that 
the crisis was past, that no new spheres 
would be reported. 

Such hope was short-lived. Insatiable, 
the things fed so long as food was to be 
had, until they reached a diameter of about 
fifteen feet; then burst in a deadly explo- 
sion of crystal spears, any one of which, 
lodging in flesh, bristled into a new crea- 
ture. Frequently the Marsistals burst on 
the very fringe of fleeing crowds. And for 
each thus self-destroyed by the necessity of 
their nature, ten or twenty new ones 
sprang up. 

Mills put the tele-news sheets aside. 
Marcia’s somber eyes questioned him. He 
told her all, from the death of Landers to 
his work — and failure — of the past 
hours. 

“It was a wild, desperate hope,” he con- 
fessed. “I thought Pastor might by chance 
be on the right track. But if detronite can’t 
harm the things it isn’t likely that sound 
or even ultra-sonic vibrations will. Maybe 
I’m looking for something that doesn’t ex- 
ist — maybe the Marsistals can’t be de- 
stroyed.” 

"But you can’t stop,” she put in softly, 
"until you know. Oh Tony! There must 
be something, some overlooked facts.” 

"Facts?” he interrupted bitterly. "Twenty 
years haven’t given us any real facts, except 
that they’re alive, deadly — that they feed 
and move and interfere on our radiophone 
band ” 

Arrested by a kindling spark of thought, 
he paused, then went on. 

"It’s when they move we get that inter- 
ference, and to generate it there must be 
an electro-magnetic field, probably inside 
the crystals themselves. Maybe such a field 
works through their peculiar atomic struc- 
ture to intensify the force of gravitation, 
as a burning-glass does sunlight, to make 
one side of them heavier than the other. 


and so set them rolling. 'They certainly 
don’t move mechanically, as we do.” 

He rose to pace the room restlessly. 
"Supposing we could generate that field 
within the crystals ourselves, by using a 
tight beam transmitter and getting a reso- 
nance effect. If the theory holds water, 
we should be able to produce terrific gra- 
vitational strains within them, perhaps 
enough to break down even their structure. 
It’s worth trying.” 

"Then let’s try, Tony — and quickly, be- 
cause there is so little time.” 

rpHEY worked right through the night. 

Analyzers trained upon that telltale 
"pee-whit, pee-whit” yielded their data. 

"But I don’t think it’s accurate,” Mills 
confessed. "We’re getting a lot of inter- 
ference beats that throw us off. The fre- 
quency we want is somewhere in this range, 
but how narrow its band is I can’t tell.” 

Nevertheless he assembled a beam trans- 
mitter according to the data given. Toward 
morning he forced Marcia to withdraw 
and rest, promising to call her if there 
were news. 

The transmitter finished, he laid the 
Marsistal from Pastor’s cottage in one pan 
of a laboratory balance, focussed the trans- 
mitter upon it, and snapped the switch. In- 
visible, silent radiation sprang forth. Slowly 
he tuned the circuit over its entire range 
of frequencies. 

He might as well have lit a candle for 
all the effect it had. The balance never 
wavered. That sparkling bit of alien life 
pendent in it seemed to glow defiantly. He 
shut off the transmitter, and became aware 
of Marcia, watching from a doon\’ay. 

"Tony! I couldn’t sleep. Look!” 

He nodded dully at sight of the tele- 
news sheets in her hand, too weary and 
soul-sick to wish to read them. "You may 
as well know, Marcia. It’s no use. May- 
be our guess just wasn’t good enough. Even 
if it was, I can’t build a transmitter to work 


THE CRYSTAL HORDE 


109 


on a narrower band, and that’s what we 
would need ” 

She stared at him, fear tightening her 
mouth. 

"You’re not giving up, Tony! You 
can’t!’’ 

"Nothing more I can do.” He was 
groggy, drunk with fatigue, his voice acid 
'with hopelessness. "We’d have to hit the 
critical frequency within one or two cycles 
— months of work maybe. No, we’re 
through.” 

She shook her head as though to shut 
out a persistent evil vision. "All of a sud- 
den I’m afraid, Tony — terribly afraid!” 
Through fatigue-drugged senses warning 
reached him that she was on the verge of 
hysteria, that his grim ultimatum had left 
her faith foundationless. But before he 
could stop her she had flung the papers at 
his feet and run out of the door. Out into 
gray dawnlight he stumbled after her. 

He stopped there, let her get farther 
away. At the observatory she would be 
safer than anywhere else. He had no safety 
to oflier her — nor anything else, now. Any 
other time Marcia would have stood by 
him. But this wasn’t just any time; this 
was a special hell on earth and everything 
was crumbling into black horror— every- 
thing that was or might have been. 

She had almost reached the speedster 
when she stopped, stood poised in a stiff, 
imnatural attitude. Mills’ breath froze in 
his throat and his heart seemed to stop beat- 
ing, for he knew already what she saw. 
He knew that a Marsistal would come roll- 
ing ponderously down upon her in a mo- 
ment. 

When it came he was amazed at the 
grim swiftness of it — a thing gigantic, 
larger than he had yet seen. The mono- 
speedster was in its way, and the Marsistal 
rolled through and over it, crushing the 
frail craft to earth, and unhindered swept 
downhill. Before it Marcia fled with all the 
glorious vigor of her young body, silently. 


saving her breath for flight. But the lead 
she had was fast dwindling. 

Desperation sucked the strength from 
his limbs. Willing to give his life tenfold 
for hers, he knew this was no case for 
heroics, that rescue was humanly impos- 
sible, that even if he were to throw him- 
self under the thing it would pause only 
an instant in its pursuit of her. On.e finish 
only to this race with death, unless — 

He did not deceive himself. The chance 
was slender, but worth the playing. He 
shouted, made certain that Marcia was 
heading for the house — she didn’t know, 
of course, that the sphere could roll walls 
down like so much papiey mache. Then he 
sprang indoors and swung the beam trans- 
mitter around, facing die doorway. 

M arcia was two hundred feet from 
the porch when he grasped the small 
Marsistal gingerly by the edges, where it 
had grown no needles up to die time he 
had last examined it. That it might have 
grown new ones since was a chance he had 
to take, because this was no time for fuss- 
ing delicately with tongs. 

He jammed the thing into place before 
the little wire grid of the beam transmitter, 
where every iota of energy would have to 
pass through it. A wager for two lives, his 
slim supposition that the Marsistal’s atomic 
structure might act as a natural screen or 
filter, that the transmitted energy would be 
so affected as to lie within that critical range 
of frequency peculiar to the crystals. 

He flipped the switch just as Marcia 
reached the porch. The giant sphere was 
only fifty feet behind her then. What if 
the impressed field merely made it come 
on faster? What if it did nothing at all? 

It did nothing at all, and Tony Mills, 
strangely cool and deliberate, began, turn- 
ing the circuit from the very beginning of 
its range, uncertain whether he would ever 
finish that turn of the dials. 

Suddenly the little Marsistal in the trans- 


110 


WEIRD TALES 


mission grid split with a sodden "thunk” 
and drifted down among the busbars as 
shimmering dust. Something happened to 
the monster sphere that same instant. It 
lurched, rocked backward, came to a grind- 
ing, quivering halt. It settled as though 
striving to force its bulk into the hard 
earth. Dirt shivered aside under its vi- 
brating spears. 

There was a sound, a sharp, tinkling 
death-rattle. Abruptly the crystal broke. 
The shards of it dropped to the accompani- 
ment of that shrill, penetrating vibration. 
It disintegrated as though a charge of de- 
tronite had been exploded at its core, and 
every fragment crumbled still further as it 
fell. 

Upon the ground, sparkling as with mica 
dust, lay a pulsing reddish-brown globe six 
inches in diameter, flattened by its own 
weight, flabby, repulsive. As though re- 
hearsed, and without conscious thought. 
Mills knew what had to be done. From 
his laboratory he brought nitric acid. It 
hissed and bubbled as he poured it upon 
the globe. A stench arose. The throbbing 
ball dissolved into a puddle of steaming, 
frothy liquid. He emptied the bottle into 
if. 

Then Marcia was in his arms, sobbing 
and unnerved now that all was past, and 
he shaking with fear of the fate that had 
passed her so closely by. 

She pushed herself away from him at 
last, looked up at him with eyes in which 
pride and tears blended equally. 

"We have to tell them now, Tony,” she 
whispered. "There’s a world waiting.” 

He turned to the radiophone and 
switched it on. No maddening "pee-whit, 
pee-whit” now. Silence but for a faint chat- 
ter of DX on some far-off channel — silence 
almost of death. 

"It can’t be too late!” he muttered. "Not 
now — ■ when we can fight back! Not 
now ” 

The selector bulb flashed into belated 


response. Dialing Federal Police, he 
added the emergency signal. A tired desk 
sergeant grunted routine acknowledgment. 

"I have completely destroyed a Marsistal 
sphere,” said Mills slowly. "Give me your 
commanding officer.” 

'The man gasped comically, but made the 
desired connection. Within a minute Mills 
was speaking to a national chief. Within 
three he was addressing not one man, but 
a world-wide conclave of emergency police 
heads, army officers, and technicians. To 
them he explained succinctly what he had 
done, and how by a simple determination 
of the exact frequency transmitted by the 
small crystals at the instant they broke 
down, special transmitters working on that 
predetermined frequency could be built, to 
be effective witliout further use of small 
Marsistals. 

Before he was allowed to leave the 
phone, technicians were already at work; 
the first step in a world-wide offensive 
against the crystal horde had been taken. 
Mills himself was ordered to Washington. 
For the following hour he and Marcia 
packed and set the laboratory in order. 

At the end of that time a police plane 
droned to a landing outside. Five minutes 
later tliey were winging toward Washing- 
ton, a grinning young police lieutenant at 
the controls. 

rpHE plane’s teletype rattled busily. From 
time to time the pilot passed back its 
curtly worded bulletins. The substance of 
them all was alike — new's of humanity’s 
drive against the dreaded spheres. 

'The first battery of transmitters, placed 
in action in Washington, had rid the capi- 
tal of the spiked horrors. After a thirty- 
six hour reign of terror, the streets of that 
city were once more safe. London had won 
seven victories in isolated encounters with 
Marsistals, and was rushing construction of 
more transmitters. Panic was subsiding. 

"I wouldn’t be surprised, sir,” said the 


THE CRYSTAL HORDE 


111 


lieutenant gravely, "if there’ll be quite a 
crowd at the landing-held. The people are 
wild with relief, and you can’t blame them. 
You’re the man of the hour, sir. Even be- 
for I left, there was plenty of excitement.” 

He passed back more bulletins. The 
Marsistals were being conquered. Where 
the transmitters went, victory followed. 
London and Berlin were wiping out the 
spheres as fast as they could be found. 
Metropolitan New York had been cleared 
of the menace. No further casualties were 
being reported. 

“That makes it certain, sir,” continued 
the pilot. "The crowd at the landing-field, 
I mean. They were planning a parade when 
I left, with a reception to follow. I thought 
you might like to know.” 

Mills groaned. His muscles aclied wiljb 
fatigue and his eyes almost refused to stay 


open. The pilot’s news made him wince 
in anticipation. 

"Lieutenant!” said Marcia. “Do you 
know of a long way to Washington?” 

The pilot considered gravely. "I’ve heard 
it’s possible to go by way of Chicago, Miss. 
Of course I have my orders, but I was told 
to place myself at Colonel Mills’ disposal. 
Your commission is waiting at Washing- 
ton, sir. Any orders?” 

“Yes!” retorted Mills, sinking deeper 
into the comfortable cabin chair and squeez- 
ing Marcia’s hand. "Proceed to Washing- 
ton— via Chicago. And don’t hurry. You 
understand. Lieutenant?” 

The pilot’s head came around, but 
snapped instantly back to rigid attention 
ahead. 

"Perfectly, sir. And — my congratula- 
tions!” 


1 nheritance 

By SUDIE STUART HAGER 

k 

I’m grateful to people, a thousand years back, 

WTio let their minds run on a fanciful track — 

Saw silver- winged fairies dance lightly in rain; 

Heard witches conniving at trickery and pain; 

Felt shivers when ogres, hobgoblins and gnomes 
Shrieked nightly in forests or haunted their homes. 

I, too, search for eggs Easter rabbits have laid, 

And footprints where shyi woodland brownies have played; 
Deliciously shudder at Hallowe’en hats. 

Great owls, with eyes flaming, and spitting, black cats. 

Had ^1 folk bequeathed thjings of pract ica l need. 

Oh, life would be pro^ and meager indeed! 





112 


"He grasped his hammer and cut the outline of her foot.” 




eyond the Frame 

By MARIA MORAVSKY 


Blitzing office buildings struggled for a place in the frame with 
another, an older city of gilded spires and many- 
colored roofs. The past won. 


H elena WOLNA, a young Pol- 
ish librarian in the Slavonic De- 
partment, sat at her desk, look- 
ing wistfully at an old painting. 

The picture hung opposite a window 
overlooking a downtown square. The lights 
of a distant skyscraper were reflected in the 
glass protecting the canvas, and the torches 
of ao ancient procession mingled with the 
reflection of electric lamps. 

Helena looked at the painting, vague be- 
hind the shining glass, and saw the inter- 
posed images of the candle-lighted Polish 
cathedral and the blazing office buildings 
struggling for the place in the frame. 

Impatiently she pulled the window-shade 
lower. Freed from the competition of the 
intruding reflection, the painting was re- 
vealed in all its alien beauty. Winged Hus- 
sars galloped on both sides of a gilded car- 
riage, escorting a frail, very young girl to 
the cathedral. Their faces, sharply lighted 
by torches, were full of animation which 
had survived centuries. 

All Helena knew about that fragment of 
her old country was gleaned from historical 
books. But she had a romantic obsession 
to see it. Her racial memory seemed to 
know the half-forgotten scene. . . . 

The painting now seemed blurred. Per- 
haps the glass was covered with the vapor 
of the misty evening. She looked closer 
and saw with astonishment that the glass 
was missing altogether. 

The ancient scene seemed now distant. 
A thick curtain of fog hung between it and 
the girl. Helena stretched her hands to- 
ward the dimmed figures, signalling them 


subconsciously to come nearer. . . . And 
then, the torches flickered. 

The picture gradually became alive. The 
carriages moved farther and farther, then 
the galloping horses stopped suddenly. 
What had happened? Helena moved for- 
ward, peering through the fog. 

Groping through the reddish darkness, 
she stumbled over something hard and 
thought without surprise that she was 
crossing the frame, the threshold behind 
which lay ancient life. 

The dark frame broadened. Its inner 
edge stretched endlessly, expanding into a 
dark corridor with ashen walls, high ceil- 
ing and polished, slippery floor. Further 
and further she walked along this dark, 
subway-like tunnel with a misty opening 
at the end. 

Further and further. . . . The opening 
broadened, the mist dispersed. At last she 
reached the end of the tunnel. A strong 
wind scented with strange memories blew 
into her face. The city of many colored 
tiled roofs and gilded spires shone in the 
distance, illuminated by the sun’s afterglow 
triumphing over the fog. 'The evening was 
delayed, the torches looked pale. 

Along the road leading to the glittering 
city hurried innumerable carriages, ox-carts, 
horsemen, and peasants in heavy-soled 
boots. Peacock feathers adorned their hats, 
bells jingled from their belts. 'Their women 
in ample billowing skirts sewn around with 
multicolored ribbons were like living rain- 
bows. 

'ITaey sang, laughed, gossiped. 

“Is it true that King Jagiello has prom- 

113 


114 


WEIRD TALES 


ised to baptize his people if our Krolewna 
marries him?” 

"Oh, yes! They will be baptized in 
batches. They will step into the river, and 
the priests will pray over the water, to con- 
secrate it. And then, after they have been 
sprinkled with holy water and given the 
names of our saints, each new Christian 
will be given a white shirt and a loaf of 
bread.” 

"Surely many of them would suffer bap- 
tism twice for that!” 

It was the tipsy ox-cart driver who said 
the last words. A barefooted priest in dark 
brown habit belted with unbleached rope, 
who was being given a ride on the cart, 
shook his finger at the irreverent joker. 

T TELENA listened to the chatter with ex- 
cited attention. She felt that in some 
vital way it concerned her. 

"Krolewna Jadviga is coming to Crakow. 
She has been to the White Sisters, to ask 
for advice. They say she has at last decided 
to marry this barbarian king.” 

"He is all covered with hair, like a 
beat,” they gossiped again. 

"Her second name is Helena,” someone 
said. 

And then Helena realized that she was 
the expected princess. She looked at her 
clothes: they were strangely cut and rich. 
Even xmder the layer of dust she could see 
how shiny was tlie silk of her voluminous 
skirt and fur-edged bodice, how thick was 
the plush of her amaranthine mantle. 

A passing knight looked at her, aston- 
ished, and swept the dusty road with the 
plume of his hat. 

"How did you happen to stray here, 
Krolewna? Dare I offer you my horse?” 

"I — my carriage broke down on the way 
to Crakow. I hated to disappoint my people 
waiting for me in the cathedral. I left 
my escort behind,” she answered assur- 
edly as if repeating a sentence heard 
many times. 


"Your courtiers will worry, Krolewna.” 

"Let them worr)’!” she laughed lightly. 
"I am tired of their pomp.” 

The knight lifted her gently and placed 
her behind him on the richly ornamented 
saddle. Jadviga followed with her finger 
the fantastic design of beaten gold and 
asked: 

"Where did you get this saddle? It seems 
to be of foreign design.” 

"Yes, it’s Turkish. A dead pasha parted 
with it on my belialf.” He laughed un- 
pleasantly. There was a hint of murder in 
his laughter. 

Jadviga recalled that war was the onl)- 
business of knights. The fearless Hussars! 
It sounded well in chronicles, but to meet 
one was repulsive. Why, he boasted of 
robbing a dead man! 

"I will never marry a knight!” she 
thought. 

And then — she remembered. She was 
coming to Crakow, to marry the knight of 
knights . . . the King of Litliuania had 
promised to unite his country with the Pol 
ish kingdom, and Jadviga, who had inher- 
ited the throne of her father, was the sea! 
of that promise. How could she, even for 
a brief moment, forget that? 

Yet it seemed to her that the event had 
been kept in oblivion for centuries. . . . She 
made an effort to remember why she had 
forgotten. But her mind was confused 
about tlie past. Or was it — future?” 

She had a queer feeling o^f racing through 
the centuries. The epochs mingled so. . . . 
Were tliere any Hussars at the time of 
Jagiello? Certainly not. Nor had the Turks 
yet ventured to set their feet in Europe. 
Yet she heard the swish of the great cav- 
alry wings designed to terrify the heathens 
from Asia; she saw the enormous pinions 
of eagle feathers hovering over Poland, 
casting their gigantic shadows over the 
country’s future, while she rode backward, 
toward its past. 

Her mind was in a whirl. Her head 


BEYOND THE FRAME 


11 ? 


ached under the heavy headgear. She lifted 
her hand to her burning forehead and saw 
on her finger a ring of darkened gold; it 
blazed with a crudely cut diamond. Yes, 
she was bethrothed. 

Her mind became mercilessly clear on 
that point. She was engaged to be married 
to that huge Lithuanian of whom people 
said that his body was all covered with hair 
like that of a bear.. How disgusting! She 
wanted to weep. 

But she remembered her dignity; people 
must not see her crying. The horse had 
already galloped through the gate leading 
to the cathedral. 

S OMEONE recognized her in spite of the 
blurred light of the torches, again en- 
veloped by the mist and the deepening 
dark. A voice shouted: 

"Long live Jadviga!” 

And the echo awakened among the solid 
stone walls of the cathedral mimicked 
faintly: 

"... live Jadviga! . . 

Yet she did not feel the joy of living. 
She seemed to be going through a painful 
dream erroneously called life. 

"Jagiello will be here before the eve- 
ning mass, to welcome you, Jadviga.” 

She did not notice who said it; her at- 
tention was attracted by the sound of a 
hammer. 

“Who is working here so late? Does 
not all work cease at sunset?” 

The knight who had brought her an- 
swered, helping her to dismount from his 
restless horse; 

"A few stone-cutters had to work at 
night, to complete repairs on the cathedral. 
It must be ready for your marriage cere- 
mony.” 

She followed the sound of hammers. It 
seemed persistent and appealing like a sig- 
nal sent out by someone very dear. ... At 
the farthest end of the cathedral she saw a 
light-haired lad replacing a stone in the 


wall broken by cannon. In the wavering 
torchlight his hair shone like pale gold. 

His face was poignantly familiar to her. 
Somewhere, centuries ago, she had seen 
those dreamy gray eyes with their tinge of 
cobalt blue around the pupils. . . . She 
loved to see them, centuries ago ... or was 
it centuries ahead? 

"What a ridiculous thought!” she mused. 

"Tell me your name,” she asked the 
lad. 

Before answering, he bent low and wiped 
his eyes with his sleeve. Only then she no- 
ticed that the boy was crying. 

"Why do you cry?” she asked gently. 

Her escort was shocked by her talking to 
a commoner. The surrounding crowd was 
gaping with astonishment at the unusual 
scene; a Krolewna conversing with a plain 
stone-cutter. 

The boy hesitated. Then he looked up 
and their eyes met. As if compelled by a 
force stronger than his will, he blurted out: 

“My father is ill. He upset a tigel in 
which he was melting metal, in search of 
the element of Truth. He is a great al- 
chemist, you know. He scorched himself 
with molten metal. I am too poor to call 
in the king’s healer. Others can’t help him. 
So I am working at nights to earn enough. 
.... But he may die before I am able. . . .” 

He did not finish the sentence. Startled, 
with his mouth open, he watched Jadviga 
put her little foot on the stone which he 
was fixing. The light of many torclies 
flashed on its diamond buckle. Krolewna 
forced the buckle off her slipper and 
handed it to the boy. . . 

"Take this — for your father.” 

The boy looked at her with mute grati- 
tude. When she stepped off the dusty stone, 
he grasped his hammer and cut in the out- 
line of her foot, which had left its mark 
on the dust. '' 

“Let the mark of your good deed live for 
centuries!” he exclaimed, pointing to the 
deep cut. 


116 


WEIRD TALES 


As their eyes met once more, these two 
realized that the most common of all mir- 
acles had happened; love blossomed out. 
And, with overwhelming joy, came in- 
stantly the withering realization that the 
flower would not be permitted to live; Jad- 
viga-Helena had to marry the king. 

The amaranthine flags of Poland, redder 
than blood and brighter than flame, flut- 
tered in the breeze that smelled of burn- 
ing pine. Their gilded tassels sparkled in 
the light of the gay bonfires started on the 
streets. Men in embroidered sukmanas and 
girls aflutter with ribbons crowded around 
them. The cymbalists of Litliuania and the 
pipers of Crakow tried to outdo one an- 
other making as loud as possible their 
simple melancholy music. Presently their 
tinkling was drowned in the roar of horns 
welcoming the king. It was a gay sound 
marking the beginning of the feasts and 
holiday-making, but for Jadviga it sounded 
like the trumpets of Judgment Day. 

A GREAT crowd of strange-looking 
people with whitish hair, pale yellow 
skin, and powerful bodies standing knee- 
deep in the waters of the winding river. . . . 
Jadviga could hear the murky water swish- 
ing between their bare, hairy legs. The 
dignified priests in gold-embroidered or- 
naty, praying aloud under the cold gray 
skies. . . . The solemn ceremony of bap- 
tism. . . . The sun bursting suddenly 
through a heavy cloud, with its rays almost 
tangible, streaming down like the strings 
of a great harp reaching from sky to earth. 

, . . 'Phe murmurs; 

"Miracle! Miracle!” 

She saw and heard it all in the detached, 
lonely way of one peeping unseen at a 
stranger’s feast. So a departed soul may 
look at the body it has deserted. She saw 
herself, as in a mirror, standing beside a 
stocky, broad-shouldered man in shining 
armor, with a great white eagle painted on 
his gilded shield. 


"He puts on his armor even on holidays. 
He is suspicious, always ready for war,” she 
reflected. 

She looked at him long and hard like a 
tamer at a beast he has to break. But when 
he returned her gaze, she wavered. Was 
not the burden too great? Uniting king- 
doms was not a woman’s task. 

Jagiello was bored with the too long 
ceremony. He yawned openly, disclosing 
his big, wolfish teeth. 

Jadviga felt that she had a request to 
make. What was it? With an effort of 
one recalling an incident of remote child- 
hood, she said: 

"That stone-cutter ... do you remem- 
ber the stone-eutter from the cathedral?” 

"The one to whom you gave your dia- 
mond buckle? Yes, people told me about 
your extravagance, my queen.” 

She looked up into his somber eyes. 
There was a flicker of amusement in tlaem. 
No, he was not angry, just mocking. . . . 
Taking heart, she continued: 

"His father died. It is a pity; the old 
man was a sage. Had he lived a little 
longer, mayhap he would have discovered 
the Philosopher’s Stone.” 

"I and my people have but little need 
of philosophy,” Jagiello said sourly. "These 
alchemists are often dangerous sorcerers. 
What about his son?” 

"Waclaw wants to get work at the 
court.” 

"Not while I live! He knows how to 
cut figures for tombstones, yes? By Pemn, 
none of our family needs one yet!” 

"Please, do not swear by the pagan 
gods,” Jadviga admonished him gently. 

TN THE spacious roof garden of Jagiello ’s 

palace, shaded by great trees brought on 
enormous platforms all the way from a 
Lithuanian forest, Helena-Jadviga ky in 
her silken hammock, listening to the con- 
fused melodies of distant violins and ac- 
cordions. There was a carnival crowd danc- 


BEYOND THE FRAME 


117 


ing on the market place, celebrating the old 
pagan holiday disguised by Christianity as 
Easter. 

She was infinitely sad and lonely, not be- 
cause her king was away fighting the sav- 
agely religious Teutons, but because he was 
to return soon. 

He would return and then — the services 
of the flaxen-haired falcon-keeper would 
prove dangerous. . . . 

"What is troubling you, my pani?” she 
heard the caressing voice. 

"Can’t you guess what it is?” She gave 
him an eloquent look. 

"To disperse this sadness, may I read 
you aloud from Slowacki?” 

She rose from her hammock, startled be- 
yond words. The boy mentioned the poems 
which were not yet born, the genius whose 
soul still wandered through the shadowy 
valleys of the future. 

As if hearing her thoughts, her lover an- 
swered them: 

"We are predestined to meet always . . . 
both in the past and the future. . . .” 

M oonlit mists scented with fading 
violets of late spring. . . . Distant 
shoutings of the celebrating crowds. . . . 
The clanging of bells and the roaring of 
horns. . . . And, dominating all the scents 
and sounds, the aroma of the boy’s hair 
and the mocking soimd of his indiscreet 
kisses. . . . 

The king’s return. ... A hooded falcon 
handed to the falcon-keeper. And then — • 
the terror! That terror! 

"Do you know how to care for the birds? 
How long have you been here? I never saw 
you before!” Jagiello’s hoarse voice was 
asking, his hairy fingers drumming over 
the gilded shield protecting his broad 
chest. 

"I— I have been serving in the palace 
for two — no, for three years,” he stam- 
mered. 

"Ah! So you must know all my birds. 


Undoubtedly, you know their ways. You 
know that they will attack a stranger. . . . 
Now, my faithful falcon-keeper, will you 
take the hood off this one?” 

The fierce bird flying at the boy The 

swish of its vy^ings, so loud, so unbearably 
loud, reminiscent of the great pinions of 
the Winged Hussars. . . . And then, a 
hank of blood-stained golden hair torn out 
of the beloved head. 

"Ha! Ha! I remember you cutting 
stones in the churchyard, at Crakow! I’ll 
give you time to cut a stone for your grave! ” 
Darkness. . . . The bloody mists swim- 
ming under the trees of the artificial gar- 
den. ... It seemed that the roof of the 
palace would break under the weight of the 
rich fat mold taken from the fertile fields 
of Sandomir, to grow the parasitic flowers 
in the king’s paradise. 

Y ears later, lying in her chamber deco- 
rated only with the crucifix and the 
obraz of the virgin, the sick wife of King 
Jagiello remembered the stone-cutter whom 
she had tried to force out of her heart by 
fasting, prayers and good deeds. Her tired 
soul/ stripped of its earthly cravings, longed 
now for but one look into his gray-blue 
eyes. 

"Send for Waclaw,” she whispered to 
her old servant who bent to straighten her 
pillows. 

The old woman looked at her with com- 
passion. Had the queen forgotten that the 
boy had died long ago? 

"Waclaw does not live in your kingdom 
any longer,” she said, making the sign of 
the cross. 

But Jadviga-Helena would not believe it. 
"He promised to wait for me — he prom- 
ised.” Her bloodless lips murmured un- 
consciously the suddenly remembered 
words of a strange poem: 

"We shall forget we ever died . . 

She paused, trying to remember the 


118 


WEIRD TALES 


queer lines. The7 were in a foreign lan- 
guage, not in Polish. 

"My love will meet me on tlie shore 
And be will lead me by the hand ...” 

She asked herself the meaning of the for- 
eign sentences which sung themselves out of 
her inner self. But she could only repeat: 

"We shall forget we ever died . . .” 

Oh, for one look into his eyes! She must, 
she would find him waiting beyond the 
walls of this stuffy chamber! 

She thought tlaat she could njove. It 
seemed to her that she rose from her bed 
and v/as groping toward the door. But 
it was only her soul which moved away 
from the heavy and motionless body tied by 
mortal disease to the bearskin-covered bed. 

She passed through the heavy oak door, 
between the brass-wrought bars which 
crossed its polished planks. She walked 
with unearthly light steps across the cob- 
bled court of her castle, past the armor- 
clad sentinels, out of the iron gate, beyond 
the lowered bridge, farther and farther, to- 
ward the end of the city where the dusty 
road led from its suburbs to the ancient 
wall. 

Dim light shone through the slit in the 
wall. She glanced tlirough it. Strange how 
thick the wall became! The slit stretched 
endlessly, expanding into a corridor with 
ashen wails and polished slippery floor. 

“An underground passage!” thought 
Queen Jadviga. 

At the end of the tunnel there was an 
opening. It grew broader and broader, 
myriads of starry lights shone at the end 
of it. A strange steady light, unlike the 
torches and candles, a hundred times 
stronger. Yet it was not the light of the 
stars. It was lamps shining from hundreds 
of windows of a mammoth building. A 
skyscraper! 

As if through a fog, she heard someone 
asking: 

"Are you in charge of this library?” 


S HE rubbed her eyes. A young man stood 
at her desk. The gentle foreign slur- 
ring of syllables gave his voice the quality 
of a caress. His Slavic high cheek-bones, 
softly outlined mouth, round cliin, flaxen 
hair, seemed incongruous with his Ameri- 
can clothes. 

Dreamy gray eyes with a tinge of cobalt 
blue on the outer fringe of the iris looked 
deeply into hers, and she heard the bells 
of the ancient cathedral chiming witli sad 
sweetness, proclaiming the unforgettable 
hour. Tliey both knew% at first meeting, 
the thrilling sadness of things to come and 
tilings which had passed long ago. 

"I am Jan Groholski,” the visitor intro- 
duced himself. "I was directed here by an 
art dealer.” 

Unable to speak, Helena motioned him 
to a chair. For a while, they sat opposite 
each other, sharing the same strange tu- 
mult. . . . The young Pole said: 

'T sat here for a long time watching you 
dream in front of that picture. Did you — 
do you ever have the feeling that you saw 
the same person and surroundings long, 
long ago?” 

She nodded. He turned to the picture, 
with the unspoken implication. 

“This painting was in our family for 
generations. I remember it as a boy. It 
hung in the music room, in our Warsaw 
home. But ray grandfather was so poor, 
he had to sell it. A wealthy American con- 
noisseur bought it. Now that I somewhat 

prospered here ” 

She thought that she understood. 

"You w'ant to buy it back? But you can’t, 
you know. It’s public property — the li- 
brary’s administration won’t sell.” 

“Yes, I know. Now that it belongs to 
the public library I don’t mind. I’m per- 
fectly satisfied to leave it here. But I’d like 
to copy it. Just a sketch. . . . May I?” 

“Why, of course,” tlie girl said unstead- 
ily. The impact of tliis strangely familiar 
meeting left her shaken. 


BEYOND THE FRAME 


119 


The young artist opened his portfolio 
and took out a kind of stylus. 

"I’ll do it in silver point,” he explained. 

"What is silver point?” 

"A drawing made with the sharpened 
end of a silver stick. It leaves marks which 
oxidize. They are much finer than any pen- 
cil can make. Tire drawback is that it can’t 
be erased. You have to draw it right the 
first time.” 

Even as he spoke, he drew rapidly, 
frowning. For a while Helena watched his 
slim hand move along the roifgh paper. 
Suddenly he tore the sheet in two. 

She gave a little outcry of dismay. 

"It did not look right to me,” he ex- 
plained. "I’ll try it again.” 

This time it pleased him better. \ The 
girl in the bridal carriage and her convoy 
of winged hussars looked clearer. Yet again 
the artist shook his head and tore the sheet. 

"I don’t seem to get it.” He looked 
about the emptying room. "Are you going 
to close?” 

The librarian looked at the clock. 

"I may close a little later,” she decided. 
She had to see that drawing completed. 

'The last visitor left. It was long past 
closing time. But Helena still watched si- 
lently the quickly moving hand. 

Now the artist raised his darkened, 
troubled eyes, and looked searchingly into 
her face. 


"I abandoned the idea of copying the 
whole picture. I’m just sketching that fur- 
thest plane of it. . . . It seems somewhat 
obscure, but it may clarify. . . . Yes!” he 
cried so that he startled her. "It is clari- 
fying!” In a low tone, almost in a whisper, 
he added: "Almost against my will. . , .” 

She bent over the sketch and saw, not 
the girl in the bridal carriage, not the 
Winged Hussars on its sides, but that un- 
forgettable scene by the cathedral, with the 
young stone-cutter chiseling the outline of 
Queen Jadviga’s small foot. 

Again centuries melted away. The pale 
gray lines of silver point seemed to scintil- 
late, taking on some unearthly light. She 
looked closer into the queen’s face, and it 
was almost like her own reflection in the 
mirror. 

Slowly, with bated breath,- she trans- 
ferred her gaze to the other face, the suf- 
fering yet exalted features of the young 
stone-cutter, just outlined by the visitor. 
She looked at it for ages, as the library 
clock loudly ticked away mere seconds. It 
was the face of Jan Groholski. 

Sudden lightning from the electric storm 
lit up the sky. And in that brief, dazzling 
light, she saw a glimpse of the future. 

She could not see the details. But one 
indelible impression remained: Jan and 
herself bound forever together, by a link of 
timeless destiny. 



/t 


t Happened to Me 


UZEIRD TALES will pay ten dollars apiece for true psychic experiences. Have 
you ever slept in a haunted house, or been chased by a ghost? Have you ever 
dreamed a dream that came true? Has your life been saved by a vision? Let the 
other readers of WEIRD TALES know about your weird experience. Your story 
must be brieSy told, in not more than a thousand words; the shorter the better. 
It must be true, interesting, and must deal with the supernatural. Write it down today 
and send it to WEIRD TALES, “It Happened to Me” department, 9 Rockefeller 
Plaza, New York, N. Y. We will pay ten dollars for every one used. 


THREE FLOWERS 

By F. T. COMPTON 


J UST before they closed tlie coffin on 
my sister, Lucille, in our little churcli 
I placed three flowers in her hand — 
three white roses from the bush in our 
front yard. It was the last earthly thing I 
could do for Lucille, for she had loved 
the roses very much. 

But tliose roses have haunted me for 
years and are haunting me now. You see, 
after Lucille died — and she was only nine- 
teen, a pitifully young age to die — there 
were only three of us left. My older sister, 
Nina, and my brother, Arthur, who was 
also a few years older than I, and, of 
course, myself. We had no other relatives 
that we knew of. 

It was years before the roses, as I say, 
began haunting me. Then one night fif- 
teen years after Lucille’s death I had a 
dream. I could see a small vase in the 
middle of a white-covered table and in the 
vase were three white roses. I could see 
nothing else. Just the table, the vase, and 
the three flowers. And one of the roses, I 
noticed, was wilted. The other two ap- 
peared fresh. 

I woke with a start. I don’t know why, 
but I did. For a long time I lay there 
puzzling. Then my mind groped back- 
ward through the years to tlie three roses 
I had pressed into my dead sister’s hand. 
120 


Now I wasn’t given to any ideas about 
premonitions or that sort of thing — ^no, I 
wasn’t at tlie time. But next morning I re- 
ceived the news that my sister, Nina, had 
died of a heart attack during the night! 

•'T^HREE years passed and I had all but 
forgotten the dream when it occurred 
again, only this time it was in a slightly 
different form. This time I could see the 
same white-covered table, and tlie same 
small vase, but in the vase there were 
only two white roses — one fresh and one 
wilted. 

Again I awoke and my mind recalled 
the other instance in which I had dreamed 
of the roses. There had been two fresh 
roses and a wilted one then. And, I 
thought with a mixture of fear and scoff- 
ing, if that dream were prophetic the 
wilted rose had represented poor Nina. 
The wilted one in this instance must repre- 
sent Arthur or me! 

Ridiculous! I scoffed. Called myself a 
fool! Yet the remainder of the night was 
sleepless for me. 

Come morning, and I hurried down to 
Arthur’s office. He wasn’t there, although 
it was already past his hour of arrival. I 
learned tliat he had driven out of town 
late the preceding aftornoon on business 


IT HAPPENED TO ME 


121 


and had meant to return, probably late 
that night. 

Time passed and I grew frantic. Still, 
hours later, there was no Arthur. I gave 
up. He was dead. I knew it! Just as 
clearly as I knew it later when a pale-faced 
boy informed me that he had found Ar- 
thur’s body in the ruins of the car that 
had gone over the edge of one of our 
mountainous roads the night before. 

Prophetic.^ The dream could have been 
coincidence once. But could it have been 
such twice? I firmly believe that the first 


wilted rose had represented Nina. Tlie sec- 
ond, Arthur. If that is true I can believe 
that the third rose represents myself, can I 
not? 

Somewhere in my subconscious, or 
wherever it is dreams store themselves, 
there is a vision of a white-covered table, 
a small vase, and a single white rose that 
is wilted. 

Each night I pray that that par- 
ticular vision will not be called from the 
limbo of dreams and other shadows for 
many, many years yet. 


THE CAST-AWAY SLAVE 

By THOMAS TRAFTON 


T his is the history of a dream, or 
perhaps it wasn’t a dream! Two 
years ago, while I was still in 
school, I was in tire habit of lying down 
to take a brief nap after returning from 
three o’clock classes. One day, I believe it 
was in March, while I was napping in this 
manner I had a dream so vivid with its at- 
tendant incidents that I recorded an ac- 
count of it in a small note-book. 

I seemed to awaken wet to the skin 
upon a sandy beach. I was dressed in the 
manner of sailors 150 years ago; which 
fact didn’t seem strange to me. Vaguely, 
I seemed aware of shipwreck in a violent 
storm. 

After walking some distance down a 
nearby road of sorts, I came upon a color- 
ful procession of three donkeys led by a 
squat, broad, thickly-muscled Negro. Two 
of the animals bore large, covered jars 
slung along their sides; the third carried a 
fat, dark, greasy-skinned individual having 
a fishy gleam in his eye. Both men wore 
clothes giving an Arab effect. 

I smiled, said a cheery "Good morn- 
ing,’’ and started to ask a few pertinent 
facts about my whereabouts. They stopped, 
looked at each other, looked at me, then 
back at each other. They spouted some out- 


landish gibberish between themselves. 
Then the Negro advanced, apparently* to 
inspect me. He began prodding and pinch- 
ing me painfully here and there. '^J^en I 
rather roughly pushed him away he pre- 
sented a sharp, pointed,^ slightly curved 
knife at my throat. 'Tliis situation was 
rapidly becoming unpleasant and even dan- 
gerous to me. I grasped his wrist and 
threw him over my shoulder with what is 
known in the wrestling world as a "flying 
mare.’’ In doing this, however, his knife 
slashed my left knee. I was more than 
holding my own with this Negro when 
my world exploded into a million, incan- 
descent, hurtling fragments. I had tem- 
porarily forgotten the Syrian, for such he 
on the donkey’s back apparently was. 
Dazedly, I recall walking with this caravan 
for a great distance. As my hands were 
tied behind my back, I was powerless to 
do anything in the way of escaping. Soon 
the road blurred and danced before my 
eyes; then came a blank blackness in which 
I don’t remember a thing. 

When I awakened I had a strange, dizzy 
feeling in my head; the whole room 
seemed to be swaying literally about me. 
Now comes one of the incidents I men- 
tioned; 


122 


WEIRD TALES 


Altbou^i there were no sharp points 
or projections on or near the couch 
upon which I could have cut myself, on 
my left knee was a two-inch gash w'hich 
had been bleeding freely. I still have a 
scar there. 

Now for the otlaer incident; In the sum- 
mer of that year, 1938, I went to Los An- . 
geles to visit my paternal grandmother. 
She had moved to ^ifornia before I was 
old enough to remember. While I was 
there she showed me a very old, framed 
letter. It said in a quaint, old script and 
with peculiar spelling: 

"Cadiz, November the 6, 1778, on 
board the Lively. Honored Father and 
Mother, I have taken this opportunity to 
let you know that I’m now bound to 
Charlestown and shall come home as soon 
as possible. I hope these lines will hnd you 


in good health as they lea\'e me at present. 
I have not heard from you these three 
years and more, but hope to see you in 
five montlis or less. I have but just got 
out of Barbary and run away from Gib- 
raltar and come to Cadiz in Spain. I was 
cast away upon the coast of Barbary and 
was a slave tliere 19 months and 12 days 
and was given up (by) the King of 
Morocco to the English Counsel — 13 of us. 
I have but (the) desire to be remembered 
to all friends, that is those alive. 

"Thomas Trafton.” 

Incidentally, I learned that die writer 
of the letter was my grandfather’s grand- 
fadier and diat his name and mine are one 
and die same. 

Now this account may be fantastic and 
unbelievable, to you, and I think it strange 
myself. But — it happened to me. 


RABBIT’S INTUITION 

By JIM PRICE 


T his strange experience happened 
to me just a few days after I had 
got married. I was on my way 
home from work one night. It was an ex- 
ceptionally dark night and I was in a 
hurry to get home to my wife. I had made 
a special trip to the bank to get enough 
money to fix our home up in comfort. 

I was driving a buggy at the time. Be- 
ing in a great hurry I decided to take the 
shorter road. When I came to the turning 
off point, I was surprised to see a rabbit 
sitting up in the middle of the road. The 
hofses racing down on it did not seem to 
frighten it a bit. It just sat diere in the 
middle d tiae road, quite unconcerned. 

I intended to go straight ahead, but 
when the buggy started to pass the rabbit 
and go the shortest road home, the rabbit 
jumped up and raced ahead, of the buggy. 

It ran up ahead and stopped again in 
tire middle of the road ahead of the horse. 


This had me very puzzled and I stopped 
for a minute. The rabbit just sat there 
and stared at me. When I started the 
horses again the rabbit ran aliead again 
and stopped as it had before in front of 
the buggy. 

When I stopped this time it turned 
around and ran bade the odier way a bit 
and stopped again and seemed to be wait- 
ing for me to turn back. Finally I turned 
around and followed the rabbit. He turned 
down the road that was the longest route 
to my home. I foUow^ed him until I was 
halfway home, then he turned and ran into 
the bushes. 

I went on home that night. The next 
morning a friend told me about a band 
of men that had held up and robbed him 
on the way home the night before. If I 
had kept on the road I first started on, 
they would have held me up and got all 
the money I had in tlie world. 



Corpses and Chalices 

I N THIS issue of Weird Tales we intro- 
duce two writers very well known in 
other fields, but new to our readers. H. Bed- 
ford-Jones is, of course, one of the outstand- 
ing writers of fiction appearing in the maga- 
zines today. His name is known to readers of 
Short Stories, Adventure, The American 
Weekly, Blue Book, all the writers’ magazines 
and wherever people look for readable fiction. 
His association with this office goes back 
many years, and it is a memory of a certain 
series of stories that appeared under his name 
in Short Stories that led to a correspondence 
which produced the stories of a Professional 
Corpse which will be coming along in Weird 
Tales. The next one of this series, by the 
way, is called The Blind Farmer atjd the 
Strip Dancer — we feel that the title alone 
ought to arouse your interest, and the story 
is just as good. B-J is not a prolific corre- 
spondent; his letters are apt to say: "Dear 
Mac: Here’s a story. Yours, H.B.J.’’ Actu- 
ally that’s all we need. The printer and our 
readers can do all the rest. 

The other writer new to WT is Frank 
Gruber, author of The Golden Chalice- 
Mr. Gruber has had a very varied career. It 
began in Minnesota, continued in the army 
for a period — ^where he says he was the worst 
soldier, but far from the worst crap-shooter — 
led him to construction camps, the publishing 
business— -by way of poultry journals — and 
several other activities. His real interest is 
in writing, however, and he is the author of 
many magazine stories, creator of a successful 
movie character, Oliver Quade, and lately has 


been appearing regularly on best mystery 
seller lists with his book. The French Key, 
which won honorable mention in the Mary 
Roberts Rinehart detective story contest. In 
the course of a conversation one day, Mr. 
Gruber mentioned that he had written a short 
story that was in the weird category — and we 
didn’t let him get out of tire office until he 
had promised to let us read it. And here it 
is in this issue of your magazine. 

Seabury Quinn 

RACTICALLY all the letters received in 
our office say, sooner or later, that the 
writers are devotees of Seabury Quinn. Not a 
bad comment on any writer, it seems to us. 
We are glad therefore, to have his novelette 
The Gentle Werewolf in this issue of 
Weird Tales where modern stories are so 
well represented by Gruber and Bedford- 
Jones. We hope to have plenty more Quinn 
in this magazine. 

Why “It Happened to Them” 

N THE last issue of Weird Tales we 
printed three personal experiences under 
the heading of "It Happened to Me.” These 
drew quite a few letters from readers, among 
others a very interesting one from Mr. How- 
ard Brenton MacDonald, of New York City, 
who has an M.A. and F.R.G.S. after his name 
and describes himself as lecturer, author and 
traveller. We print Mr. MacDonald’s letter 
in full, his opinions and suggestions being 
of course, entirely his own. 

"Weird Tales readers may be interested 
in explanations, according to the occult teach- 

123 



124 


WEIRD TALES 


ings, of the tliree personal experiences re- 
counted in the May issue. 

"In the first case Mr. Gary is attracting 
those bullets by his own inner attitude. 
Haunted by the spectacle of a man shot to 
death before his eyes and worried by the 
dreams predicting his own death in this man- 
ner, he formed a deep-seated mental picture 
in his subconscious which is influencing events 
around him. The Yogis teach that 'yo^^ 
that to which you are inwardly attuned,’ 
sooner or later. Already Mr. Gary has thus 
attracted,’ through the power of the sub- 
conscious mind, two bullets; and unless he 
changes his inner attitude very radically, very 
soon, the third bullet will arrive and kill him. 
However, if he would honestly try to replace 
this deep-seated worry and certainty of death 
by a bullet with a positive picture of a long 
life free from all harm tliere is still a chance 
that the third bullet may not reach him. 

“The case of Carma Millard’s husband 
deals witli an earthbound Astral Body. Oc- 
cultists tell us that at death our Ego leaves the 
physical body but carries with it the Astral 
Body and, at times, some of the higher men- 
tal principles. The Astral Body is an exact 
counterpart of the Physical Body, only it is 
composed of much finer materials and is only 
visible to people possessing clairvoyance or 
advanced occult powers. Occasionally this 
Astral Body will not disintegrate for several 
weeks or months but will remain near its 
former earthly haunts, as did the mysterious 
girl in white in tliis experience. Egos im- 
prisoned in such earthbound Astral Bodies 
often fail to realize that they are indeed dead, 
and so attempt to communicate with friends 
or relatives in familiar places, just as this girl 
did in the Cocoanut Grove ; but they can only 
be seen or talked to by some mortal of un- 
usual psychic pow'er such as Evan Millard 
obviously possessed without understanding it. 
There is nothing unusual, either, according 
to the occult teachings, about the fact that 
Mr. Millard believed he had met and known 
this girl somewhere before; for undoubtedly 
his Ego had been associated with her in some 
past incarnation. And because of this strong 
former attachment it was only logical that he 
should want to rejoin her, and to accomplish 
this it is entirely possible that he simply 


'wished’ himself 'out of the body,’ or died 
voluntarily by an action of the will alone, 
when he finally realized that this mysterious 
girl was actually dead. Of course all of this 
is a terrific burden for Mrs. Millard at the 
present time; but if she can bring herself to 
realize tliat neither tlie 'ghost’ of the girl nor 
her husband was guilty of any 'crime’ but 
were simply drawn to each other in this ratlier 
unusual manner through the workings of the 
great Law of Karma, perhaps she can become 
reconciled to her loss. I sincerely hope so. 

"The tlaird experience is simply an ex- 
ample of what the occultists call 'Astral Pro- 
jection.’ There are hundreds, or perhaps thou- 
sands, of similar cases known to students of 
psydiic phenomena. What happens is that 
the Ego and the Astral Body leave the physi- 
cal body temporarily, while the physical body 
is still living, and literally 'fly off into space’ 
for a time and then return to the physical 
body, unharmed. Many advanced occultists 
and Yogis have the ability of projecting them- 
selves, or their Astrals, at will ; but more often 
such experiences come unexpectedly to per- 
sons who have psychic powers without realiz- 
ing it. 'This is what happened to the friend 
of Caroline Evans. To materially minded peo- 
ple such a story as this may seem silly; but to 
an occultist it is a well recognized happening, 
easily explained. Neitlaer Miss Evans or her 
friend need have the slightest alarm over this 
for such Astral Flights have no bad effects 
upon a person who understands their cause.’’ 

Unseen Forces 

From Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Betty V. 
Browne writes: "Your magazine, which 
thrilled me when I read it as a child, has 
come back into my life again and I anxiously 
await each new issue, eager to enjoy its many 
unique and beautifully written stories. 

"In an age when there is so much trashy 
literature on the market, it is indeed refresh- 
ing to find one periodical which adheres un- 
flinchingly to its policy of printing tales of 
literary merit as well as intense interest to 
those interested in psychic phenomena. I am 
an X-ray technician and have published sev- 
eral technical papers, but even those of us 
engaged in scientific fields can realize that 
potent forces are unseen and unfathomed.’’ 


THE EYRIE 


125 


There be a Dorothy Quick Story 
Next Time 

Vera Bagley writes from Chicago, Illinois: 
"Although I have been reading Weird Tales 
for over six years, this is the first time I’ve 
gathered courage enough to express my en- 
thusiasm for your line magazine. I honestly 
believe yours is the only one on the market 
of really weird and bizarre fiction. 

"Your splendid staff of writers is always 
pleasing, and I certainly would hesitate to 
pick any particular one as being my favorite. 
Their stories have been so uniformly good, 
that few, indeed, have not reached WT’s 
high standard. However, I rpust confess a 
weakness for Seabury Quinn. I should like 
Mr. Quinn to know how very much I have 
always enjoyed his lovely weird stories, espe- 
cially those of medieval times. 

"By the way, what has happened to Clif- 
ford Ball, and his Raid? He was a most like- 
able rogue. And Dorothy Quick, why has 
she been absent so long a time? If possible, 
let us have more of her, please. More of 
Hannes Bok would be very nice. I must say 
that he is an up and coming young man and 
hope to see a great deal of him in the future. 

"Goodness, I nearly forgot my one com- 
plaint! Why do we wait so long between 
issues?” 

THE BLACK ART 
From its Birth to Blackout 

M any of you readers have written in and 
told us the kind of weird subjects that 
you like to see in the fiction pages of Weird 
Tales. Vampires, werewolves, weirdly scien- 
tific fiction, these are all favorites. And witch- 
craft — well . . . 

. . . Witchcraft is — literally — as old as the 
hills. But the particular brand that blazed a 
trail of fire, torture and execution from Scot- 
land to Massachusetts — climbing to an all 
time persecution high in the sixteen and sev- 
enteen hundreds — ^was spawned in England 
more than a thousand years before. 

Way back in the Fourth Century, Christi- 
anity began to edge Paganism out of Eng-/ 
land’s religious picture — but thousands still 
remained faithful to the old Gods and God- 
desses. Although the new religion had an- 


nexed their temples, there continued in glades 
and caverns and secret hollows of the hills, 
the rites of Diana, Janus, Flecate, and the 
terrible witch goddess Erictho. 

In its earlier stages, witchcraft was a reli- 
gious organization, having rites and services 
very similar to the Qaristianity of those times. 
It was not evil then. Through the centuries 
that followed, however, the old Gods were 
gradually forgotten, and witchcraft evolved 
into an entirely Anti-Christ "religion.” 

'They were souls in revolt with a vengeance, 
these witches, dedicating themselves to the 
Devil — ^whom they worshipped as God — and 
co-opting the Powers of Darkness in a war 
to the death with the Saints and Angels. From 
fanatical Dianists, they had by the year One 
Thousand grown into fanatical devil wor- 
shippers. 

Their fearful ceremonies, initiations and 
Sabbaths crawled the whole slimy gamut of 
formulae for nauseating bric-a-brac, from the 
fat of grave-robbed babies to murderers’ fin- 
gernails; they said the Lord’s Prayer back- 
wards, dressed up as animals, cast spelk and 
the Evil Eye, stuck pins in wax and leaden 
images — and strove in every conceivable and 
inconceivable way to destroy their enemies. 

Witclies had their own midwives, their 
chore being the dedication of babies to Satan. 
And adult witches were baptised at the initia- 
tion services with such titles as "Thief of 
Heaven” and "Devil’s Whelp.” So powerful 
did the witches become, in their influence 
over the peoples, that the Qiurch, which had 
at first inflicted only minor penances, decreed 
that all "Black Artists” should wholly perish. 

Witchcraft was now a rubbish heap for 
worn out creeds; and tire bonfires became the 
most efficient method of all time for rubbing 
out one’s enemies, for once you were so much 
as suspected — your fat "was in the fire!” 

In Central Europe, often as many as twenty 
percent of a city’s population was burnt for 
witchcraft during the course of twelve months. 
High and low, old and young and even babies 
were fed to the flames. In this country, they 
were hanged and burned in droves, and 
Spain, France, Italy — every "civilized” coun- 
try became an inferno that Dante would have 
envied. 

Science, education and progress have made 


126 


WEIRD TALES 


CAMERA OUTFIT 

Take photesraphs and develop them yourself. Outfit includes 1 Box 
Camera. 2 Films, fixing and developing povrders, glasstopprinter, 
priDiingpapere and complete directions. Price postpaid COc. Coin. 
Extra films 15c per dozen. 

You receive without cost with order 2 samples and details how you 
can get free a complete 4 Tube a.c.-d.c. Badlo. Model 1940, ready 
to play, in modem Plastic Cabinet. No get-ricU-Quick sclieme. 

Write la ARISTOTRADE, Post Office Box 327. 
YONKERS, NEW YORK. 


YOUR WRITING ANALYZED 

by an expert For particulars, write, don’t 
type, to 

MRS. CLAIRE LOCKETTE, 

33 W’averly Place, Bank, N. J. 


WEIRD BOOKS RENTED 

Bo(*s by Lovecraft, Merritt, Quinn, etc., rented by mail. 3c a day 
Pius postage. Write for free ilst. WEREWOLF LENDIHG 
LIBRARY, 227-Q. So. Atlantic Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa. 


often have requests for back 
issues of Weird Tales. We 
list below such numbers as are avail- 
able. If you would like to obtain any 
of these issues write us — ^Weird 
Tales, 9 Rocicefeller Plaza, New 
York, N. Y. The price is 25c a copy 
up to and including August, 1939. 
All after that date, 15c a copy. 

1928 — ^August, October, November 
and December. 

1929 — March, May and June. 

1931 — ^April-May only. 

1932 — Jan., Feb., June, Aug., Sept., 
Oct., November. 

1933 — ^Jan., Feb., Marcli, May, July, 
Aug., Nov., Dec. 

1934 — All except January. 

1935— All. 

1936 — All (Aug. and Sept, com- 
bined). 

1937 — All except January. 

1938— All. 


witchcraft a very definite back number, but 
even today in remote parts of this and other 
countries there still remain some believers in 
witches and their craft. And who are we to 
say that during other centuries, tlrcre did not 
exist — ^in a dim “once upon a time” — 
sciences as powerful as the wonders of 1940? 

DR. CYCLOPS (Paramount) 

W E happened to see a preview the other 
day of the film “Dr. Cyclops.” It was 
an interesting experience, and we think tliat 
Weird Tales readers will also find it so 
when die picture comes their way. 

Imagine being suddenly reduced in size to 
13V^ indies. That’s what happens to five 
people who attempt interference with the 
plans of Dr. Cyclops — mad scientist who 
plans world domination dirough the power 
that his discovery of the secret of matter will 
bring him. 

The doctor deddes to make them "look 
small” — and he succeeds so well that the five 
unfortunates wake up to find diemselves 
dressed in pocket handkerchiefs. From here 
the story develops thrillingly, with die mad 
doctor as some fiendish Gulliver in a war to 
the death with five desperate Lilliputians. 

The picture is in technicolor. Albert Dek- 
ker takes the part of Dr. Cyclops, and Janice 
Logan is the scientific and very effident hero- 
ine. "Dr. Cyclops” is altogether a very ex- 
citing affair, and one that I think you will 
really enjoy. 


WEIRD TALES CLUB 
9 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N. Y. 


W £ HAVE had various suggestions for 
making diis dub a success, and it 
seems that most of our readers favor a cor- 
respondence dub for die exchange of ideas 
about weird matters of all kinds. So we plan 
to set aside a special space for the Weird 
Tales Club in each , issue ; in it we shall 
print the most interesting letters from mem- 
bers — and also publish a list of die names 
and addresses of all those who write in for 
membership. 

So, if YOU want to become a member of 


THE EYRIE 


127 


the Weird Tales Club, just write us. We 
shall be happy to enroll you on the club 
roster, and to print your name and address 
in the magazine. In this way we hope that 
you and all W. T. C. members will discover 
mutually interesting pen-friends, and that the 
publication of names and ideas will be help- 
ful fbr all those of you who want to form 
their own branches of the Weird Tales 
Club. 

Weird Tales Club 
9 Rockefeller Plaza 
New York City, N. Y. 

Allow me to add my plea for a Weird 
Tales Club to those you have already re- 
ceived. I suggest that the club be a national one 
sponsored by the Weird Tales Magazine. 
And that an appropriate emblem be adopted 
so that members may readily recognize each 
other in strange places. 

By organizing a national club it will be 
possible for individuals to join where it is 
impossible to form a local club. 

Of course you will publish a list of all club 
members who wish to correspond with others. 

Please consider this letter as an application 
for charter membership in the proposed club. 

John Haliburton. 
564 S. Blvd., Norman, Oklahoma. 

New Members 

Mrs. Joseph Brafa, 1613 St. Paul Street, Balti- 
more, Md. 

Bart Reagan, 903 Bryn Mawr Rd., Uptown 
Station, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Douglas Robinson, 2 Conestoga Rd., Garrett 
Hill, Penna. 

Mrs. Doris A. Currier, 49 Dell Avenue, Lake- 
port, N. H. 

Robert Lee Brothers, Gonzales, Texas. 

Louise F. Avery, 776 Ostrom Avenue, Syra- 
cuse, N. Y. 

, Blair Moffett, 340 Powell Rd., Springfield, 
Pennsylvania. 

Ralph Rayburn Phillips, The Bhuddist 
Brotherhood of America, 423 S. E. 69th 
Avenue, Portland, Oregon. 

Franklin Bristol, Victoria 100-21, Mexico 
City, Mexico. 

Richard H. Jamison, VaUey Park, Missouri. 
George M. Aylesworth, Box 508, Mackinaw 
City, Michigan. 


F D E* E* SAMPt.ES OF REMARK, 
t ABLE TREATMENT FOR 

Stomach Ulcers 


Due to Gastric Hyperacidity 



H. H. Bromley, of Shelburne, Vt., 
writes: "I suffered for years with acid 
Btomach trouble. My doctors told me I had 
olccrs and would bare to diet the rest of 
my life. Before taKing your treatment 1 
lost a lot of weight and could eat nothing 
but soft foods and mlUc. After taking 
Von*a Tablets I felt perfectly well, ate 
almost anything and gained back the weight 
I had lost." If you suffer from indiges- 
tion, gastritis, heartburn, bloating or any 
oilier stomach trouble due to gastric hyper- 
acidity. you, too, shoold Ton's for prompt relief. Send for FREE 
Samples of this remarkable treatment and details of guaranteed 
trial offer. Instructlye Booklet is Included. Write 


PHU^ADEI^PHIA von CO. Dept. 64-H 

Fox Bldgr** Philadelphia, Pa. 


CONFIDENTIAL TO MEN 

Thousands of men suffer sometimes painful and an- 
noying symptoms, such as frequent rising at night, pains 
low in the back, as well as in the redon of the crotch 
or rectum — symptoms not always due to Prostatitis, 
but may be frequently associated with inflammation of 
the Prostate Gland — when in doubt, ask your doctor. 

HEATADE offers you a convenient method for use 
at home — bringing soothing warmth to the Prostate 
Gland. Send for your copy of the free book — “A Silver 
Lining” — offering hope of palliative relief from symp- 
toms of Prostatitis. Explains everything. Read how 
you may secure HEATADE for a full thirty-day triaL 
Let us send you complete details of our offer without any 
obligation to you. Write to HEATADE APPLI AN CESj 
INC., 2203 Franklin Ave., Steubenville, Ohio; 


STUDY AT HOME 

I/eganytralncdmenirlnbtg;))* 
er posltloDs and bigger suo 
ccss in business and public 

life. Greater opportunities now thaa 
ever before. Bitr corporations ara 
beaded by mon with legal training* 

, More Ability: More Prestige: More Money 

We guide yoa step by step. Yoo can train at homa 
during spare time. Degree of LL. B. Successful 
rrmrliLitea in overy section of tlie U. S. We famisti 
an teJCt materia), including 14'Volume Law Library. Low cost, easy 
terms. Get oar valnnble 4.'3-png(>‘'I.-%w Trainlngfor Leadership’ 'ana 
"Byldoncel’ boolts FKER.. Sond^or them NOW- - 

LaSalle Extension University, Dept. 675-L Chicago 
A Corresponoonce lostItutloD 




$1260 to 


Railway Postal<« 
Post Office 
Clerical, eto. 

Get ready 
Immediately 


/ FRANKLIN INSTITUTE 
' Dept. 0-240. Rochestep, N. Y, 

^ Sits: Bush to mo without charge, (1) 
^ 82-page book with list of many U, S. Got- 
^ emment Big Pay Jobs. (2) Toll me bow to 
^ Qualify for one of these jobs. 


Mail Cou- / Kama, 
pon today. / Address. 




FEATURES 


and I’ll send your choice 
of these selected VALUES 
for 10 DAY TRIAL and 
10 MONTHS TO PAY. 
Money back if not 
Satisfied . . . 




' « Grea>es» ^1°"° brUl'.an* 
value 


Yes - your credit is OK with me -- I'LL 
TRUST YOU. Tell me what you want— put 
a dollar bill in an envelope with your 
name, address, occupation and a few 
other facts about yourself-l’ll send your 
choice of these select values for your 
approval and 10 day trial. If you are 
not satisfied that you have received 
good, honest dollar for dollar volue, 
send it back and I'll promptly return 
your dollar. If satisfied, you’ll pay ia 
10 small monthly amounts you'll never 
miss. 

^ee*>ie4f. 

Safes Mgr, 

FREE TO ADULTS... 

A Postcard brings my complete 48-Page 
Catalog showing hundreds of diamonds, 
watches, iewelry and silverware, all 
offered on my 10-Months-to-Pay Plan. 


BULOVA’S 

Miss America 
R251- Newest Bulova 
"’’v 'OK 

sold filled case 
seous creation pric 
Complete in gift fox 
*5-28 a month 


YOUR CHOICE CIPOC 

KENT WATCHES 

P200-Ladies' Kent Heart Watch 
with bracelet to match. K152- 
Mon s Kent round watch with 
sweep-second hand. Both 
7 leweJs; lOK yellow rolled 
gold plate cases, $1.50 


■nonlh 


Weddine 


lien Cameo 
HT LOCKET 

$450 

:°me''a“’"n veUow 


MAN’S Initial RING 

$1695 




number 


MAILORDER DIVISION 0/ fi NLAY STRAUS 

1331011670 BROADWAY-NEW YORK 


j 

i 


' -Lr. 


1 



traim *=o« 


Pay Tuition 

After Graduation 

4 

12 WEEKS _a| 

SHO?TRAIHIHC^^J 


First you are told and shown what to do 
and how to do it. Then you do it yourself. 


GET MY BIG 
^ FREE 


BOOK 


Homo of 


Blectrical 


My big free book tells you 
how we train you in 12 
weeks for your start in the 
growing field of Electricity. 
Learn by Doingr 
You get your training not by book 
or lessons but on actual electrical 
machinery and equipment. 

Get Training First- 
Pay Tuition Later 
You can get your training first and 
thenpay f or m ost of it in 10 monthly 
payments starting 5 months after 
you start school or 60 days after 
your 12 weeks training period is 
over. Mail coupon for all the details 
of this plan. 

Low Board and Room Plan 

I have a plan where you can get 
board and room as low as $5.00 per 
week. I want to tell you about this 
plan as well as other facts regarding 
your stay at Coyne. 

Previous Experience or Advanced 
Education Not Necessary 
You don’t need any previous elec- 


trical experience or advanced educa- 
tion to get my training. 

Graduate Employment Service 
After graduation every graduate is 
given employment help, consultation 
help and many other services to help 
him make a success of his training. 

/ 4-Weeks Extra Radio 
Course Included 
Right now 1 am including an extra 
4 weeks course in Radio. This train- 
ing is given you at no extra tuition 
cost. 

Get My Complete Story 

Fill in and clip the coupon below. 
Then mail it to me. When I receive it 
I’ll send you my big free book and 
all the details of the features I 
have outlined here. 

This will not obligate you in any 
way and no salesman will call on 
you as I do not employ salesmen. 

You owe it to yourself and your 
future to get these facts now. 

So don’t put it off — mail the cou- 
pon now. 


COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL Dept.^O^M.CmCAG^ 

——•WAIL THE COUPON NOW^-— 

liv. 9 .' LEWIS, President, COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL. I 

500 S. Paulina Street, Dept. AO-66, Chicago, 111. t 

.1™ really in earnest. I do want to get ahead. Send me your big free catalog i 
with lull particulars about Coyne training. | 


Name. 


City 


t 


: I 

I ■ ? 





, - 


I 





I 


TJ ORCES from the unknown 
descending upon the earth 
— the evil of the centuries 
that had lain waiting above the clouds 
— and men of science girding for 
combat. 

BEYOND THE UNKNOWN 

A startling novelette leads our next 
issue. It is by a man whose stories are 
very well known to readers of the sort 
of mystery tales that keep you on the 
edge of your chair — 

ROBERT H. LEITFRED 

A newcomer to WEIRD TALES — and a very welcome one. 

And here are further ad\^ce flashes on some of the highlights of 
the next issue of WEIRD TALES. 

Number two in Bedford'Jones’ Adventures of a Professional Corpse 
is the BLIND FARMER AND THE STRIP DANCER — another 
assignment with death for the man to whom dying is all in the day’s 
work. It’s even more exciting than the ARTIFICIAL HONEY' 
MOON. Incidentally, Bedford'Jones got the idea for the Professional 
Corpse stories from an advertisement that actually appeared. 

SEA BORN, by Edmond Hamilton, is another grand story scheduled 
for September. This tale is about a boy who is able to live both above 
and below water — and tells of his longing to rejoin the undersea folk 
to whom he really belongs. 

That well-known fictioneer, Dorothy Quick, is contributing TURN 
OVER, a grimly humorous story of an old man who means what he 
says when he threatens his family that he will turn in his grave. 


The September issue with other headliners will be on 
sale at your newsstand on July 1st. 


Looking at the 
next issue of 

WEIRD TALES